Tokyo, Japan- waitingroom will be presenting the solo exhibition, “modality” by Koichiro TAKESUE from 2/1/14(Sat.) to 3/2/14(Sun.) He is an artist who works with digital media by downloading photographs onto his computer. We are pleased to announce his third exhibition at our gallery. The ambivalent nature of his work seems to comprise all medias, from digital to analog, painting, photography, and video and is unique to his style; this represents the theme of his work, “the materiality and immateriality that is revealed through the pixels.” It has been three years since his last exhibition, and we will present his latest works built around the subject, “the sense of touch within vision and kinesthesia.”
This exhibit is also a part of the community cooperation of Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions held from Feburary 7th through 23rd at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

TAKESUE was born in 1974 and lives in Tokyo now. After graduating from college, he began working with digital media using the Mac. He aims to discover materiality within the immateriality of digital expression and mainly works in Tokyo. His recent exhibitions include the group show “VOCA 2012” (Ueno no Mori Museum of Arts, Tokyo) in 2012, where he received the encouragement award, and a solo exhibition “Picture Element” (waitingroom, Tokyo) held in 2011.

TAKESUE has been pursuing the materiality of pixels within the digital media by digitally processing the photograph he has taken and creating a painting-like image from it; through this procedure he parallels the image with an analog form of art like oil painting. At this exhibition, he returns to the idea that brushstrokes of digital paintings may seem like an actual material of oil painting, and focuses on the digital representation that is supposed to be non-existent from the kinesthetic aspect. This links to the scenery we live by everyday and ultimately leads to question our own existence. The viewers’ senses are stirred, suspended in between the inexplicable mysterious feeling and the sense of deja vu that they receive from his works. The title of this exhibition, “modality” is a psychological term that can mean any of the sensations, such as vision or touch. The characteristic of TAKESUE’s work lies in the revelation of existence of substance from the highly dense patterns of digital imagery. Viewers may feel puzzled by his work, but the works simultaneously stimulate synesthetic memories in them. Please come and take a look at his new works, varying from drawings created by the most primitive materials to high tech works presented by the monitors. He is exploring new ways to express his work.