Shuhei Tominaga
SHUHEI TOMINAGA
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Born in Rome , 24 August 1972
Graduated in Fine Arts (Painting), Tama Art University, Tokyo (1996)
Studied furniture design at ISTITUTO EUROPEO DI DESIGN (Italy) (1998)
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1992 – Exhibition “EYE & EAR” (Kawasaki Education and Culture Centre Gallery)
1994 – Unit exhibition “Front and Back of Attitude” (Kawasaki Education and Culture Centre Gallery)
1995 – Participated in the 4th NICAF International Contemporary Art Festival (Pacifico Yokohama)
1995 – Solo exhibition “Shuhei Tominaga’s Exhibition” (Ginza Gallery Gabo,Tokyo)
1995 – Installation at the head office of the Bank of Yokohama (Sakuragi-cho, Yokohama)
1995 – Exhibition “MATERIAL” with 6 works by Yajirobei (Ginza Gallery Gabo,Tokyo)
1998 – Solo exhibition “Santa Maria del COLLAGE” (Ginza Gallery Gabo,Tokyo)
1999 – Exhibition “poi poi nada” ( Izu Kamigamotei Gallery, Shizuoka)
2000 – Space work for the wine bar “VINO DELLA PACE” (Nishi-Azabu, Tokyo)
2005 – Solo exhibition “Santa Maria del COLLAGE 2005” (Ginza GalleryBo ,Tokyo)
2008 – Debut exhibition of toy brand MAPA “Fantasia” (Ginza GalleryBo ,Tokyo)
2009 – Exhibition “Toys for Play” at the Eltz Toy Museum (Museum Collection)
2014 – Solo exhibition “Santa Maria del COLLAGE 2014” (Shonandai Gallery ,Tokyo)
2015 – Created mosaic art for the entrance of Fukui Megumi Children’s School
2015 – Created fabric art for the one-year-old children’s room at Fukui Megumi Children’s School
2018 – Produced the space for the Minami Aizu ‘Toy Railway Pinocchio Station’
2021 – Planning and producing art for the playground and creation area in the Minami Aizu Forest and Tree Information Activity Station ‘Kitone’.
2023 – Produced 8 pieces of wall art ‘Asobo’ for the one-year-old children’s room at Fukui Megumi Children’s School
Awards
Winner of the Good Design Award 8 times (2001/2010/2012/2013/2016/2017/2018)
Winner of the Wood Design Award 2 times (2016/2019)
Winner of the Good Toy Award 5 times (2016/2018/2019/2019/2020)
I recently had the opportunity to look at my old work, which is a very fluffy composition of expression from more than 30 years ago, when I was painting acrylic and cement abstract paintings. I ask myself: can I paint something like this now? As I ask myself these questions, I realise that I have the strong desire to paint something. So what exactly do I want to paint? I hit on that and searched for the reason. However, even 30 years ago, there was no reason other than that essential self-expression, “I just naturally looked for beautiful colours and shapes.”
In my early years in my twenties, I used to paint purely coloured images of emotional things and thoughts, warmth and love, the images I felt in my body and heart, without knowing if it was right or not. It was like beginning to speak a new language that I had started to learn.
Around 1993, I travelled alone for two months as a backpacker in Europe, and there was a moment when I found the ‘true expression’ that I was looking for. In my late twenties, I replaced the expression of ‘nothingness’ with the material cement and continued to paint things like walls for a period of time. I found myself shifting to paintings in mixed textures, using the cement material as a substitute for colour, and utilising it for form and matiere. I think that I was learning about beautiful lines and forms by tracing the lines that emerged from the human body’s physical movements and human forms in my work at that time.
When I was studying in Italy, I became crushed by the heavy Italian culture, and for self-conservation, I created the ‘Santa Maria del Collage’ series of collages, as if to digest the beautiful landscapes and buildings there one by one. This series has produced more than 100 pieces between 1998 and 2014. Many pieces were purchased by many people because they were enjoyable in both size and colour. Now only a few dozen pieces remain on my collection. This series has become a collection of artworks formed by the beauty of the Italian landscape filtered through my sensibility. The works there are a perfect fusion of the play of line I learned in cement artworks and the play with colour in my early twenties.
In the last ten years or so, , I found myself always continuing to focus on abstract forms and lines while working in design, and naturally included artistic elements in my designs. I feel that this ingrained habit of ‘drawing beautiful lines and forms’ now wants to give birth to something new.
After the death of my father, who inspired me to paint in November 2020, as I looked at and organised the more than 300 paintings he left behind, I was confronted with the purity, simplicity and difficulty of art, and felt that I was gradually deciphering the language I had forgotten by looking at his work. I felt that my father gave me a chance to restart my painting, just as he did 40 years ago, when he started painting around 1981~82. Or maybe I felt like he gave me a push. For that I want to thank my father. The new works I am going to produce in the future are thanks to my father’s artwork, which silently moved my heart.
Related
- May 4, 2023
