NY Coo gallery is pleased to present Minoru Tonosaki: Recent Works on view May 12 through May 29, 2010. The artist's first New York City solo exhibition features a new suite of paintings executed on mixed media.
Tonosaki was born in Aomori prefecture, in the northern part of Japan, in 1948. He visited Paris on a sketching trip in 1973?encountered Picasso's Guernica at The Pompidou Center, National Art and Culture Center, and got a shock from the work. By contemplating it, he felt that his attitudes and concepts were completely broken and it gave him a strong motive to take a new direction as an artist. Since then he has been drawn to try to express his feelings about the loss of humanity in daily life and the irrationality in society.
He continued to paint as evidence of living his life and came to think that the action of painting is made up of the balance of power between the inside and the outside of human beings.
He started to enter many competitions in Japan in 1976 and had his first solo show in Aomori, Japan in 1983. Since then he has had twelve solo shows and has participated in many group shows in Japan. He received The Gravas Award in International Art Exhibition in Tokyo in 1997 and his work was accepted in the Salon International De Paris 2009 in France. Also he published "Art and Essay by Minoru Tonosaki "privately in 2009. He was accepted as a special artist to exhibit at Exposition De Art Actuel France - Japon Avec Participation Multinational in Tokyo in 2010.
Tonosaki believed that it was important to have a firm philosophy for his art and to clarify whether he should begin with abstract or concrete painting. He chose the latter. He also thought that continuous action in his technique would express self invention and innovation. He believes that the key to his self-expression is to create his own forms using paint and figurative shapes. Through that kind of thinking, he completed the "A Point of Contact" series formed in a blue color keynote, the "Koku,-Strong Impression" series in a red color keynote and the "Summer Scene" series in the color of yellow keynote.
Tonosaki also has a great interest in religious philosophy and finds that it has deep commonality with art philosophy. He has used paint and brushes to depict the concepts of life and death and human irrationality in life for a long time. After he returned to Paris again last year after a long absence, he was rejuvenated by seeing the scenery of the Seine and feeling the scents of Paris. This visit provided a challenge to his artistic thought and resulted in a new approach in which he uses collages made from daily materials and traditional cloth and the colors of his hometown, as well as special print techniques, for the first time in his career. After he was fascinated by "the blue time" in Paris, where, in his own words, "space changed to a subtle blue air in the moment when the delicate sun light came into the room", his works have become more enjoyable and cheerful.
Please experience and enjoy his new art world. About 20 new and recent works will be displayed.
