Avignon Tokyo Group Show | 11 July - 17 September 2022

During The Festival d'Avignon - Avignon's world famous theater festival -, Sato Gallery presented a groupshow of four Japanese and one French artist in the charming central positioned Academie des Arts d'Avignon.

The exhibition showed works Takeru Amano, Excalibur, Daijiro Hama, Samy San and Fantasista Utamaro.

The gallery space was divided in a black & white, monochrome area - showing Daijiro Hama's works - and a colourful pop area - showing works of Takeru Amano, EXCALIBUR, Samy San and Fantasista Utamaro.
The two spaces represented the fascinating and contradicting nature of Japanese culture known for its serenity and simplicity and at the same time colourful, outrageous explosiveness.

A small piece of Tokyo, hidden in the swirling streets of Avignon.

Daijiro Hama

Currently based in The Hague, The Netherlands, the inner world of Daijiro Hama (1984) is taking shape. Monochrome. Black and white. Recently with a touch of colour to emphasize a mood.

It seems a minimal concept but take a closer look and discover the bigger and deeper range of lines. Highly conceptual, yet his work tells a story. Sometimes you can look at it straight into the eyes, other times you have to use your imagination. What is certain is that his work provokes something. An emotion, a movement, a tingling sense. You just have to open up.

Takeru Amano

What does a contemporary icon look like? Is there still a message behind ?

Takeru Amano shows it to us, reflecting his personal relationship with the history and the era that surrounds him. His works do not express any political or religious message; they are merely the aesthetic explosion of ideas.

Samy San

Samy San (1986) – the Plasticien Paris – is a young French man and the first non-Japanese artist to join the gallery. Inspired by his many travels, but mostly, his fascination for Japan, his works derive from sci-fi, robotics and Japanese manga & animation. Connecting mechanical and organic waste, Samy creates a new generation of sculptures and installations that for some will feel nostalgic, while for others like a brand new world. One thing is sure: you can’t take your eyes off of it.

Fantasista Utamaro

Fantasista Utamaro is an artist, an art director, animation director and a textile designer based in Brooklyn, NY.

His distinctive ultra pop and technicolor style expresses the explosive energy in his works that are created based on his three concepts: celebration, freedom, and limitlessness. He captures pattern that increases endlessly, same as the endless imagination or the endless human’s ego.

For Utamaro, anything cannot exist unless it gets trimming, like a stomach. The most important things are hidden into the process to acknowledge the value of daily life.

EXCALIBUR

EXCALIBUR is an artist collective from Tokyo, Japan, founded in 2007 by Yoshinori Tanaka. Their pixel art is strongly influenced by the graphic appearance of Nintendo in the 1980s and by the golden age of video games. As a base, they use the same 8bit pixel as the video games of that time giving its work a strong sense of nostalgia. Simultaneously EXCALIBUR emphasizes the advanced technology of our modern times.