Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present “UPO,” a solo exhibition with Seiichiro Osa. Marking the artist’s second solo presentation with the gallery since his previous showing two years ago in the summer of 2018, the exhibition introduces a series of new works which Osa has titled, “UPO (Unidentified Painting Object).”

There is something that only I know.

Whether clear or lacking in clarity, when a plethora of issues cumulate upon oneself like a stratum, one realizes that there are certain things that cannot be researched by opening the pages of an encyclopedia or referring to the internet. Ultimately, one becomes intent on purely pursuing “what is true,” rather than finding the answer. One presumes that paintings created in this manner, exudes a certain radiance like some undiscovered planet that no one yet knows of.

And seemingly in the midst of a never-ending state of eternity, they appear oblivious to these concerns.
As such, I cannot express my love enough for paintings.

Seiichiro Osa

Osa had given his 2018 solo exhibition the title, “Echo, UPO.” In his statement at the time, he wrote, “…Whether or not we both tumble the way we want or experience the inadvertent slip of the hand, we continue to look on without the least care about the inconsistences, certainties, and mystery that resides within a single painting. The paint and I radiantly flicker to our heart’s extent. For me it is to see the light, and for painting perhaps, it is to be the very light itself. This enigmatic paint that echoes in resonation!” In this respect, it seemed that what he had entrusted in the word “echo,” was the resonance between the canvas and the paint that is a means of inscribing the image upon it, and that of his own work and practice. The abrupt resistance to the touch and stroke of the paintbrush caused by using a rough canvas, while conveying Osa’s very breathing and movement of his body through the reflective strokes that remain on the painterly plane, give rise to a process of generation he refers to as a “bout,” as a result serving to establish painting as “that which echoes.”

On the occasion of this exhibition he states, “Ultimately, one becomes intent on purely pursuing “what is true,” rather than finding the answer. One presumes that paintings created in this manner…” What this statement communicates is that rather than obtaining a certain answer through painting, there is something that “is true” to him, which is indeed Unidentified. It appears to express in a straightforward manner the artist’s space of painting that never closes, in which the brushstrokes extending in both vertical and horizontal directions upon layers of paint that convey light and shadow, as well as the lattices reminiscent of windows, organically connect and present a dynamic impression.

Seiichiro Osa Viewing Room