Fantastic Planet
There's something familiar about Kounosuke Kawakami's new paintings, as if they whisper soft references to landscape and an ambiguous, sci-fi filtered view of progress. Is it life on earth? For his first solo exhibition, currently at Bearspace in London, the artist is exhibiting new paintings concerned with the aftermath of industrialisation, landscape, nature and science fiction realities created on earth. Kawakami, who graduated from St Martins in 2005, is concerned with the positive evolutionary effect industry has on nature and life forms, coupled with the possibility of a new technological life combining space-age with our current planet to create a new landscape. Far from the bright Utopian sci-fi scenes Kawakami is known for painting, this new body of work is more painterly, sparse and peculiar. Life is presented in muted forms, landscape as beautifully defective. Technology blends with nature creating scenes reminiscent of Turner's 'View of Orvieto' after Chernobyl, or capturing one of Constable's oil sketches and concentrating it into a strange beauty. Kawakami has a deep interest in British landscape painting; one could see these paintings as an antithesis to Friedrich's sublime, finding an odd beauty in these poisoned landscapes, where the remnants of catastrophe are morphed into a new level of evolved life.
KOUNOSUKE KAWAKAMI, solo show, to 29 July
Bearspace
154 Deptford High Street
London SE8 9PQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 8691 2885
Kawakami's work will also be featured in 'CURIOUS NEW TERRAIN', Jul 21 - Aug 2, 2006, private view this Thursday.
Group painting show of 5 emerging artists, featuring Nick Nowicki, Rob Leech, Alexander Heaton and Tim Phillips as well.
Nolia's Gallery
60 Great Suffolk St, SE1 0BL
Tel: +44 (0)20 7928 3266
Tube: Southwark / Backfriars
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