YOD Gallery is pleased to present the art show by Sakurako Hamaguchi in her first solo curated exhibition, " STORY" in Osaka.

Sakurako Hamaguchi always writes her profession as a “Painter” in her résumé. Hamaguchi really loves executing paintings. Hamaguchi was recognized for the first time in Geisai # 2 in 2002 where she participated with her own stand. Kaikai Kiki, the company of the renowned Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami launched the Geisai art market to support cutting edge, upcoming Japanese artists. Hamaguchi has won the prestigious Yoshitomo Nara Prize at Geisai # 2 and the Golden Prize at Geisai # 5 in 2004. Hamaguchi has also won the Mizue Grand Prize for her picture book in 2005. Mizue was first published in 1905 and has been one of the most important and influential Japanese art magazines in the 20th century.

Sakurako Hamaguchi has been seen as a symbol of the primitive painter from her pleasant paintings, emphasized by the use of intuitive colours and unique motives, which awake our experiences in our adolescent ages. We can see heart-warming and close contacts between many characters and various animals in Hamaguchi’s acrylic canvases. The fusion of passionate brush strokes with effusive primary colours and Hamaguchi’s view of unique world results in launching a relaxing atmosphere with the close affinity between her subjects and viewers. It is this primitive portrait and landscape of dynamic refrained from details that form the essence of Hamaguchi’s work.

This exhibition, “STORY”, shows Sakurako Hamaguchi’s paintings in a completely new style from her past exhibitions where she installed her works in the GEISAI art market style with her own stand. The gallery space is filled with only large canvases (over French canvas size 20) and scattered texts. It is composed of the visual additions to the paintings, which are arisen from an original “STORY” accumulated in each painting. In Hamaguchi’s strong prose literature works that have been acknowledged by the Mizue Prize, characters and mysterious animals play together in her unique world where there is no border between realities and fantasies. The relationship between these objects in Hamaguchi’s literature seems to be not linked to her paintings, but they are complicatedly chained in fact. Symbol-like scattered small and large characters and animals in Hamaguchi’s texts on the wall are formed with abundant colours and powerfully layered lines into harmony on canvases. The power of Hamaguchi’s direct approach to the canvas will be also manifested in her 'performance paintings' which she creates live at the exhibition, as an audience of such a happening we will get the chance to be part of her world. This exhibition, “STORY”, guide us to experience the internal relationship between Hamaguchi’s literature and paintings in fragments or an aggregation of the entire space and make us feel her primitive dynamism in front of us.