Kaoru Okubo “Warm Place”

1/18 (Sat)-2/15 (Sat), 2025
Opening hours: 12:00-19:00 (Wed-Sat)
Closed on Sun, Mon, Tue and National Holidays


TATASURO KISHIMOTO is pleased to present “Warm Place”, the solo show by Kaoru Okubo(1990-).

Kaoru Okubo continues to draw paintings with the ‘’body" as a motif. A man’s body is the main focus and it is the most familiar and realistic motif for him, and it’s the one that he can draw most naturally.

In this solo exhibition, “Warm Place”, focuses on drawing a portrait of a middle-aged man with a slightly fat and stooped back. The body has adapted to the passing of time, unlike the muscular body of a portrait model. The motif is derived from bodies that are relaxed, such as those who relax in public baths in the hot water, those who relax after repeated sauna and cold bath cycles, and those who relax in bedrooms or living rooms. Relaxation can also be characterized by being exhausted and sluggish so that it is two sides of the same coin.

Previously, he has painted motifs such as the men of authority in intimidating poses and gentlemen in theatrical poses. These motifs were sources of disgust and fear for him, but at the same time they were also ideal images. As a process of painting, he tried various ways to view the “body" more objectively, eliminating the resistance to it and the emotions that arise from it. In his past works, he has tried various ways, such as attaching a paintbrush to the end of a long handle to make drawing intentionally difficult, tracing onto the canvas images that he has mastered through hundreds of drawings, and painting on a large canvas first to release his energy and emotion towards the image of the body, and then painting on a smaller canvas. He also sometimes drew fences or chains in front of the figures to distance the motif. Up until now, he has tried in every possible way to eliminate his own subjectivity, pathos and emotions for the “body”.

In his new works, he draws the body directly onto the canvas, without using any way that would remove his own subjectivity. Kaoru Okubo said, "The body that was once the object of fear and loathing, but also the ideal, has become closer to me as I get older”. It means that a change in his own body is also a factor influencing his creative approach.