Toshiya Kobayashi

AB Gallery is proud to announce the solo exhibition "Nature - to regain the irreparable" by Japanese artist Toshiya Kobayashi, presenting paintings and photographs of the "Eternity and a Day" series, which were partly created during his residency in Switzerland in 2012.

Toshiya Kobayashi approaches the subject of nature in a very sensitive and poetic way. For many years now he has been dedicating himself in a meditative manner to the depiction of plants. The clear and fluent lines as well as the monochrome surfaces and reduced three-dimensionality are a reminiscence of classical-Japanese woodcut style.

Whereas Kobayashi's earlier works of the series "Eternity and a Day" tended to be graphical, the recent ones, which he created during his residency in Switzerland, have become more and more pictorial. The beholder is confronted with dark, thick forest views, in which white and green spots only occasionally interrupt the treetops. On other occasions, obscure and beautiful magnolias sink into the background of the same darkish shade. Black covers almost the entire surface of these works. Black that actually is not a colour itself but consists of all colours serves Kobayashi to simultaneously express all his feelings, including anger, grief and joy at once.

Toshiya Kobayashi has created this works to commemorate Japan's strokes of fate two years ago, when Japan was hit by an unprecedented earthquake and tsunami, which were followed by the nuclear catastrophe of Fukushima. These works stand for the desperation and the uncertainty about the future. Only two years later the nature seems to bloom in its ancient beauty – but it is actually still contaminated with the devastating nuclear radiation. However, according to the title of the series, the works do not only talk about paralyzed fear, but rather about the hope to "regain the irreparable".

Toshiya Kobayashi was born in 1959 in Hakkaido (Japan). For some time he lived and worked in Santa Monica (USA) and Hamburg (Germany). In 1998 he received the 12th Holbein Scholarship. His works were mainly shown in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Japan. In summer 2012 Kobayashi was invited by Oryx Foundation and AB Gallery to stay for two months as artist in residence in Lucerne (Switzerland). In the same year, Toshiya Kobayashi and Iranian artist Samira Hodaei realized together the installation "Eternity and a Day" at the Nishinomiya Funasaka Bienniale.

More Information on Toshiya Kobayashi

Press Release

You are cordially invited to the opening on May 29th, 2013 from 5.30 to 8 pm.
e-card

Wednesday to Friday 12am to 6pm and by appointment

Klausstrasse 23
CH-8008 Zürich
Schweiz

map