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


TATSURO KISHIMOTO is pleased to present “Warm Place,” a solo exhibition by Kaoru Okubo (b. 1990). This marks the artist’s first solo presentation in over four years.

Since his student days, Okubo has consistently explored the human body—particularly the male body—as his central motif. It is the most familiar and realistic subject for him, and the one he renders most naturally.

In previous works, Okubo depicted authoritative male figures in imposing poses and gentlemen in theatrical stances. These bodies, for him, were both objects of fear and disgust, and at the same time, symbols of aspiration. To distance himself from the emotional weight of the body and to gain a more objective perspective, he employed various techniques: attaching brushes to long rods to deliberately hinder control, tracing motifs onto canvas after countless preparatory drawings, or first expelling emotional energy onto a large canvas before turning to a smaller one. In some cases, he inserted visual barriers—fences or chains—between the viewer and the figure to create expressive distance. These were all ways of resisting his own subjectivity, of confronting the body while trying to remain apart from it.

In Warm Place, Okubo shifts his focus to the body of a middle-aged man—softened by time, slightly stooped, and bearing the gentle weight of aging. These are not the idealized or performative bodies of classical models, but those of men at rest: sinking into hot water at a public bath, unwinding after cycles of sauna and cold plunges, or reclining in private, domestic spaces. Relaxation, however, carries a duality—what appears as repose may also suggest exhaustion, surrender, or emotional retreat.

Okubo reflects on public baths as spaces of supposed equality—where everyone is stripped bare and seemingly on equal footing—but notes their paradox: “Though they feel open and free, they are in fact confined spaces, bounded by walls.” The title Warm Place captures this ambiguity, hinting at comfort and containment in equal measure.

For this exhibition, Okubo returns to the canvas without the distancing devices of past years. He paints directly, allowing his own presence—his subjectivity—to remain in the work. He notes that the bodies he once viewed with fear or reverence have become more familiar, even intimate, as his own body changes with age. This shift in perspective informs not only his choice of subject but his entire approach to painting.

Okubo’s works continue to grapple with the fundamental question: What is the body? A question that stays with us as long as we live in one. Through a delicate balance of fine, layered linework and coarser gestures—through bold strokes and quiet passages—Okubo invites us to see the body anew. We hope you’ll spend time with these paintings, up close, and encounter the tension, care, and contemplation embedded in each one.