PLATO

Plato is proud to announce Okku/Beyond the Light, the first solo exhibition by New York-based artist Shuto Okayasu (b. 1990, Saitama, Japan) featuring paintings, drawings, and ceramic sculpture. It will open with a public reception in our ground floor space on Thursday, March 27 from 6 to 8pm.

 

Shuto Okayasu’s oeuvre is influenced by artistic forms from his native Japan, such as Nihonga, woodblock prints and manga, with their accent of flatness of images and distinct outlines, as well as by Western painting, characterized by realistic representation and suggestion of three-dimensional space. Encompassing a myriad of references – from pop culture and music videos to film and cartoons, from poetry to Buddhist and Christian symbolism, Okayasu’s works reflect his diverse, multicultural interests while pointing to the oneness of humanity.

 

The title of the exhibition, Okku/Beyond the Light was inspired by ‘Love is okku,’ a line from the post-war poet Tanikawa Shuntaro – an important influence on the artist, who also explored the cosmic in daily life. The word ‘okku’ 億劫 originated as a Buddhist term that represented a length of time too long to measure – a hundred million eons, which was connected to the creation of the universe. Perhaps as it is an incomprehensible number for a human mind to fathom, today the word signifies a sense of being reluctant towards doing something because it seems tedious or bothersome. Okayasu found this amusing linguistic oxymoron – a merger of mundane tedium and sublime eternity – to be a precise summation of his recent works.

 

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