Others' Landscapes vol.2

Alpha Contemporary is proud to present 「Others' Landscapes vol2 : Kazuki Okamura, Reo Kikuchi, Namu Choi」from July 13rd to July 31st, 2024.

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​Others’ Landscapes is a series presented by Alpha Contemporary that explores the diverse perspectives and coordinates through which contemporary artists perceive and interpret the world.

French writer Marcel Proust once remarked that we should be grateful to artists because they allow us to see not one world, but as many worlds as there are artists. Art can be understood as the result of artists continuously confronting the world — shaping their own coordinates through processes of understanding, conflict, memory, and perception, and ultimately formalizing these experiences into visual language. Others’ Landscapes begins precisely from this point.

Artists living within different cultural and social environments reconstruct everyday landscapes, images, sensations, and modes of cognition through their own perspectives, revealing worlds we may not yet have recognized. The exhibition understands “landscape” not simply as scenery or background, but as the very way each artist positions and interprets the world.

By following the perspectives of others, we encounter the possibility that the world we believe to be familiar may in fact be perceived in radically different ways. The Others’ Landscapes series examines how individual perspectives are transformed into visual language within contemporary art, and how those perspectives, in turn, generate fractures and expansions in the viewer’s own perception.

The moment we encounter another’s landscape, our own landscape also begins to be reconfigured.

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Vol.2 highlights the works of Kazuki Okamura, Reo Kikuchi, and Namu Choi, illuminating how differing approaches to image, perception, and environment generate contrasting landscapes.​​

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​Kazuki Okamura（Japanese b.1983) creates paintings with bright colors and a floating feeling, using drawings from his daily life and while traveling as clues. What begins as a real landscape is transformed into a screen with a mysterious atmosphere, as if it were floating somewhere far away. At the same time, this illusion-like landscape somehow feels familiar to me.

 

Through Okamura's works, you can experience the boundary between reality and illusion. This experience not only gives us a new perspective on our daily lives, but also gives us hints on how to solve problems with creativity in all kinds of difficulties.

 

Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting, majoring in Oil Painting (2007), Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Master's Program, majoring in Painting (2009). Received the Tagboat Special Award and the Tomio Koyama Jury Special Award at Independent Tokyo 2022 (2022).

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Reio Kikuchi (Japanese b.1993) questions the way we perceive and appreciate works and objects. We live in an era where we are flooded with images. Many images are generated every day, and these images control our lives. Kikuchi makes us think about the way we perceive and the act of viewing images that are generated, reproduced, and distributed in large numbers.

 

Kikuchi paints existing paintings multiple times using the same reference. The images, which are fully reproduced in the original work, are overlapped with various cuts, intentionally leaving traces of editing on the screen. Looking at the reproduced ``non-real'' images, the viewers perceive that they are viewing them as ``the same images as the original works.'' The works introduced at this show are based on UKIYO-E works, but it is also interesting that the prints, which can be reproduced multiple times, are originals. The images that Kikuchi refers to are those on a digital screen, and the ambiguous contrast between the imaginary and the real is set up over and over again. Kikuchi's works make us think about our perceptions as we live on the precarious boundary between reality and fiction.

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Entered Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Painting, majoring in Japanese Painting (2014), completed doctoral course at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts, and obtained Ph.D. (2023). Held numerous solo and group exhibitions. The work is in the collection of the University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts.

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Namu Choi (Korean b.1978)  depicts psychological landscapes of people who react to changes in their surrounding environment, such as nature or where they live. Natural objects such as plants, earth, fire, and water are used to create images of her daily feelings of isolation, anxiety, longing for the unknown, and a strong positiveness, using unique primary colors and a delicate yet dynamic screen.

 

She creates a multilayered psychological screen by adding complimentary colors and heterogeneous colors to light fluorescent colors.

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From her experience majoring in printmaking in graduate school, she creates depth in space by using primary colors overlapping rather than mixing colors. Please enjoy Choi Namu's mental landscape, which unfolds through multi-layered expressions such as the materiality created when pigments overlap and spread, the contrast of conflicting colors and transparency.

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Graduated from Seoul National University College of Fine Arts, Department of Western Painting (2001), and majored in Western Painting and Printmaking, Seoul National University Graduate School of Fine Arts (2004). Participated in 20 solo exhibitions (as of June 2024) and numerous group exhibitions both domestically and internationally in Korea. Selected of Songeun Art Award (2007), a gateway to emerging Korean artists.

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Please enjoy the 3 artists' unique landscapes in person.