Mizuma Gallery is pleased to announce Resonate, a solo exhibition by Japanese artist, Ohata Shintaro. Recognized for his body of works that seamlessly blends sculpture and canvas to produce playful and dreamy three-dimensional paintings, Ohata depicts life-like scenarios of the simplest experiences in everyday life.

With the sculpture placed in front of the canvas, colours and textures merge flawlessly to form a single painting. On the surface of the sculpture, each little piece of traditional Japanese paper of various colours is adhered meticulously, creating a harmonious coherence that reverberates with the rest of the scenery. What sets him apart is his distinct style of controlling colours, shade, and light, causing one to quickly assume that some kind of intense light source is present within his paintings. Through the use of similar tones to render the overall illumination, he not only creates an atmospheric effect, but also furthers the illusion of light in his paintings. This sense of dynamism and movement elevates the paintings to bring out an almost life-like quality.

When Ohata turned 40 a few years ago, he felt the need to reaffirm himself as an artist. Instead of focusing on his struggle to create great works that would make his art more convincing and powerful, he chose to capture these beautiful moments of everyday life and rebirth them as something fundamental and eternal by painting them. Through his works, he hopes to pass on those splendid moments to the viewers. The feeling of reminisce is predominately captured in Ohata's paintings. Through his eyes, we witness the dazzling and enfolding light of sunset, city roads on a rainy day, and the gleaming fluorescence of convenient stores at night. Amidst the rapid speed of life, Ohata urges audience to pause for a moment and take a breather. For his first solo exhibition in Singapore, Ohata showcases a recent painting Deep Breath, that was drawn from his interest in Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. To him, nature has been a fundamental part of this world since the beginning of time and it will never change regardless of human's existence. In Gardens by the Bay, nature and contemporary architecture seem to blend seamlessly. It was this fusion of old and new elements that he was interested in and wanted to incorporate into his painting.

Ohata Shintaro (b. 1975, Hiroshima, Japan) is a painter known to create artworks that depict little things in everyday life. The artist is renowned for his style of placing sculptures in front of paintings, combining both the 2D and 3D worlds. “By doing so, I believe that the viewers could feel the atmosphere of my works more lively and dynamically. I had been seeking for a way to give more realistic feel to my piece without changing my painting style, and then I got inspired by the painting in the backgrounds of film and theatre.” This became one of the most significant turning points in his career. Some of Ohata's selected solo exhibitions include the recent Resonate at Mizuma Gallery, Singapore (2018), Everyday Life at YUKARI ART CONTEMPORARY, Tokyo, Japan (2011), and Luminous at gallery4walls, Seoul, South Korea (2010). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions in United States, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. Ohata was shortlisted for the category of Installation & Sculpture at the Celeste Prize (2009), and at the GEISAI #10 (2006), he received the WWD Japan award, DENTSU award, GIANT ROBOT award, and yukari-art, Inc. award. Ohata's artworks can be found on the publication cover of Tokyo Soundtrack (Italian edition) by novelist Hideo Furukawa (2018), and on the CD jacket of Daylight and Suiyoubi no Wine by Rika Shinohara (2001). His artwork is in the public collection of the Takahashi Collection (Japan). Ohata Shintaro lives and works in Kanagawa, Japan.