An Examination of Painting Today

From media art and bio art to NFTs, the scope of what can be called “art” grows by the day, and shows us vistas and worlds that have not been seen before. Of all these many forms, there is still one that holds everyone, artists and otherwise, rapt: the painting. Despite carrying on for hundreds, thousands of years, it continues to evolve in new ways, inspiring our sensibilities. This talk will rethink the reasons behind this and the possibilities and significance of painting in the present day.

Speakers:
Kenjiro Hosaka (Director of Shiga Museum of Art)
Shunsuke Imai (Artist)
Reina Mikame (Painter)

Speakers’ Profiles

Kenjiro Hosaka
Kenjiro Hosaka (b. 1976, Ibaraki, Japan) completed the master’s course at Keio University. He was a curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) before he was appointed as a director of the Shiga Museum of Art in 2021. He has curated many exhibitions including Francis Bacon (MOMAT, 2013), Logical Emotion: Contemporary Art from Japan (Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, etc., 2014-15), The Voice Between: The Art and Poetry of Yoshimasu Gozo (MOMAT, Tokyo, 2016), The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 (MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome / MOMAT, Tokyo, 2016-17), and Genius: The Human Gift for Creating and Living (SMoA, Shiga, Japan, 2021).

Shunsuke Imai
Shunsuke Imai (b. 1978, Fukui, Japan) completed the master’s course at Musashino Art University in 2004. He works mainly in painting, considering color, shape, and space for the basis of his works. He explores the possibilities of two-dimensional surfaces, and the fundamental meaning of “the act of seeing.”
His recent exhibitions include shiseido art egg vol. 8 Shunsuke Imai ‘range finder’ (Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, 2014), float (HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo, 2017), range finder (Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus, Germany,2019), Skirt and Scene (Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa, Japan, 2022), and the group exhibition Paintings Here and Now (Fuchu Art Museum, 2018).

Reina Mikame
Reina Mikame (b.1992, Aichi, Japan) graduated from the Program in Master of Oil Painting Course, Department of Painting, Tokyo University of the Arts.
Mikame’s paintings are created in a manner that appears to drift back and forth between opposite ends of the spectrum of the abstract and the objective. Familiar elements that exist within the artist’s surroundings, the artist’s experiences, and the various phenomena that emerge around the artist are conveyed through means of a harmonious balance between the paint and the brushstrokes. At a glance harnessing a precise air of brevity yet at the same time profoundly orchestrated, the works seemingly evolve into abstract portrayals, while in other moments embody a sense of objectivity.
Selected solo exhibitions include: project N 69 Reina Mikame (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2017), Looking at the color (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2020), Looking at the line (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2021).