Subtle Impression(emerald, violet and blue), 2019
Oil on canvas, 100 x 86 cm (39.3 x 33.8 inch)
Photo by Keizo Kioku
Shingo Francis
Subtle Impressions
Date: Thursday September 19 – Saturday November 2, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday September 19, 18:00-20:00
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12:00-19:00 (Closed on Mon, Sun, Public holidays)
INSTALLATION VIEW
PRESS RELEASE
Download Press release (English)
MISA SHIN GALLERY is pleased to announce upcoming solo exhibition “Subtle Impressions” by Shingo Francis from Thursday, September 19 to Saturday, November 2, 2019.
Francis explores the vast space and spirituality of painting through abstract expressions that consist of multiple layers of blue and deep monochrome color works.
His new Interference series of the last few years consists of paintings created with special materials that cause optical interference, resulting in light passing through multiple layers of paint, producing a variety of colors when viewed at different angles. The canvas of these pieces appears to be full of light, but unlike works of the past that emphasize specific colors, as the viewer approaches a painting, it starts to give off a rich array of colors due to the reflection and refraction of light. Like seeing a rainbow in the sky, this visual effect caused by the viewer’s movement brings an awareness that the colors reaching our eyes are intermediated by particles of light.
In this day and age when people can easily take photos of artworks and email the images or post them on social media, the artist is concerned that people are ‘judging’ artworks simply by looking at those images in smartphones or computer displays, without actually viewing the real thing for themselves up close. Francis’ new works invite viewers to experience the paintings directly and in person, so that they can witness how the layers of color deepen and how the matière (the texture) responds as the viewer moves in front of the painting.
Shingo Francis
Born 1969 in Santa Monica, California. Currently lives and works in Los Angeles, USA and Yokohama, Japan. He received his Bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts from Pitzer College, Claremont, California in 1992, and his Master’s degree of Fine Arts from Pasadena, California in 2017. Francis established a curatorial organization, Hatch in 1996, has organized exhibitions in Los Angeles and Yokohama. His major exhibitions include “Ties over Time”, Residence of the US ambassador to Japan, (Tokyo 2010), “The Unseen Relationship: Form and Abstraction”, DIC Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art,(Chiba, 2012), “Kaleidoscope”, Lobby Gallery, Durst Organization, (New York, 2013), “A Moment in Time and Space”, Nikkei Art Project, (Tokyo, 2014), “Helios”, Los Angeles International Airport Terminal 3, (Los Angeles, 2015) “Abracadabra of Drawing”, Ichihara Lakeside Museum, (Chiba, 2017), “Layers of Nature: beyond the line”, Sezon Museum of Modern Art, (Nagano, 2018), “Emergence: Art and the Incarnation of Space”, Martin Museum of Art, (Waco, 2019). His works are in collections including JP Morgan Chase Bank, Banco de Espana, Frederick R. Weiseman Art Foundation, Mori Arts Center, and Sezon Museum of Modern Art.