Tatsuhito Horikoshi “Imagination before sleep”
We visited Tatsuhito Horikoshi’s solo exhibition “Imagination before sleep.”
The venue was the Takashimaya Art Gallery in Shinjuku.
Tatsuhito Horikoshi is an artist with about ten years of painting career.
While he has been active mainly at overseas art fairs and domestic events, this was apparently his first time exhibiting in such a spacious venue.
The work using a circular canvas, 《The Way he looks》, which was also featured on the DM, was truly outstanding.
When we asked the artist himself while he was at the gallery, he told us it was “a work I made when I was mentally down.”
The boy in the canvas gazes forward with warm eyes, giving a positive impression.
In addition to boys, there are also works depicting women.
The portraits in each work show no smiles, wearing suggestive expressions as if something lies beyond their gaze.
The backgrounds, clothing, and accessories worn by the subjects invite viewers to conjure a wide range of imaginings.
Together with the suggestive titles of the works, viewers will engage with each piece in their own way.
At first glance the works look like acrylic paintings, but all are executed in oil.
Within the solo exhibition, a unified space also created an air of tension.
Life brings both good and bad times; perhaps like works that depict the ordinary state where no expression is put on, the models in Horikoshi’s paintings wear the most natural of expressions.
The artist Horikoshi’s own gentle gaze seemed to shine especially brightly within the gallery — an impression that lingered with us.
