#CITIES KEITA MORIMOTO LIGHTS PAINTING

[xpuigc-bloc]

COLOSSAL

© Keita Morimoto

While dense cities carry an air of extraversion on the surface, it doesn’t take much digging beyond this superficial layer to see that sometimes even the most crowded places can also be the most solitary. Keita Morimoto (previously) uncovers this double-edged experience through cinematic depictions of street scenes rendered in acrylic and oil paint.

Living and working in the world’s most populous city, the Tokyo-based artist has a firsthand understanding of what it means to traverse the paradoxical. “Meeting and getting to know people in the city, and observing how such a vibrant place can still isolate so many, has profoundly influenced my work,” says Morimoto. “These experiences have pushed me to explore deeper themes of connection and solitude.”

Morimoto’s subjects and cityscapes are guided by similar themes of contrast and opposition. Glowing vending machines, vacant phone booths, neon signs, and illuminated phone screens radiate against the darkness of night and place an emphasis on obscurity. What relationship do humans have to these mechanical objects, whether they are present within the composition or not? As multiple figures congregate on dark street corners and fix their eyes upon these lit devices, why do none of them interact? As the feeling of disconnect rises to the surface, Moriomoto’s painterly strokes mimic an almost pixelated effect, literally and figuratively highlighting a fractured point of view.

Morimoto is getting ready for a forthcoming solo show at Long Story Short in Paris and another at Almine Rech in New York City later this year. His first book release will also accompany a solo presentation of new works at GINZA SIX in Tokyo.

Colossal

#CITIES #KEITA MORIMOTO #LIGHTS #PAINTING #ORIGINAL ART #ARTIST PAINTER #ART #XPUIGC

[marejadilla]

Keita Morimoto 森本啓太, "Summer Rain", 2022, acrylic and oil on linen. B. 1990 Osaka, Japan. Based in Tokyo and Toronto.

[failureofmylife]

Travels in Nihilon

I have not traveled much, but the few cities I have been in have all had their own feel. The light in Oslo is different from the light in London. This image

by Keita Morimoto reminded me of riding into Paris by bus at night, and seeing/feeling the vibe from the streets for the first time.

I have no idea what route the bus guy took from the airport but we passed a long section of villas and there were ample stretches where trees grew with branches reaching into the streets so the bus was constantly hitting those branches and there was non-stop thudding. Branches closer to the ground were pruned but everything above road sign height was left alone and we were so tall we hit everything with no mercy. Then suddenly the dark suburban vibe turned into Big Old City with the kind of houses you normally only see in old francophone comics. No steel and glass, but lots of crumbling two- and maybe four story houses. As we got closer to the hotel the houses reached maybe six floors. You could feel that this was not a little village, this was a small section of a City. The streets were paint-scraping narrow and winding. Sweden went on a remodeling bender in the 1960s and decided to make all streets Big and Wide and we simply do not have these kinds of city streets any more. We killed them, along with all other non-modern things, in the name of efficiency. There are no old-ish houses, they are either Proper Old (1700s) or built post 1960. We tore it all out.

My friends and I stayed in an older part of Paris, the 17th arrondissement, because we had (of course) bought the cheapest ride possible and thus everything was thoroughly Not Modern, and I thank the Powers that be for that, because we actually had a perfect view of those parisian roofs á la Disney.

Not our actual view, but pretty much identical. It may be the same street for all I know.

We spent a week. I ate so much parisian street food it took a decade off my lifespan and I found a bookshop for second hand paperbacks directly across the street from our shitty hotel. A record store was two blocks away around a corner. It could not be more perfect. My co-travelers went out in the evening to watch almost-naked-ladies but I hoarded books and went home with a suitcase that was jammed solid with books and records. My co-travelers took home hangovers and I took home my own weight in paper. I will not say my memories have lasted longer but the books sure have.

But that first feeling, going very fast down dark suburban streets with leafs whirling around us, that memory is just as strong today decades later.