Shinya Imanishi is an up-and-coming artist with exhibitions held domestically and internationally in Tokyo, Korea and Taiwan, as well as being awarded the Shell Art Award 2020, and will be holding his first solo exhibition of Kansai at the Bijuu gallery space. The title of this exhibition YOUKAN and CREAM comes from a passage in Junichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows, describing the Japanese aesthetics and contemplations regarding colour, and is an attempt to express the transition of light using western materials (paints).

Shinya Imanishi

Born in Nara, 1995. Shinya Imanishi spreads thick layers of oil paints on the canvas, and repeats the process of leaving strong brush marks and scraping. The image that reveals itself by standing at a distance from the painting, shows motifs such as lightning, fireworks and the movement of light, which evoke senses of change, disappearance and corruption, as well as reproduction, rebirth and revival, indicating that life (the beginning) and death (the end) are two sides of the same coin. Showing us a different expression as we change our distance, angle or position, it is as if to demonstrate how unreliable what we see and perceive in our daily lives are.