SHUN SUDO

SHUN SUDO’S EXPANDING COSMOS

Shun Sudo is a Tokyo-based artist who channels Japanese aesthetics through American Pop and street art styles to paint completely original large-format works. Sudo relies on the pitch-black hues and deft brushstrokes of traditional charcoal ink painting (sumi-e) to depict backgrounds that accentuate his boldly colored, whimsical creatures, mining Japan’s cultural legacy to release an expanding cosmos.

Sudo traces his artistic origins to his early years performing onstage as a child actor in Kabuki plays. Through his exposure to Kabuki, he absorbed the highly stylized palette and rhythms of 18th century Japan, still the bass beat of his imagination. In his 20s, Sudo lived and traveled in the U.S., where he inhaled the freeform expressions of Pop Art and the raw energy of street art splashed across inner city buildings.

Although Sudo never formally studied art, he credits the 18th century genius, Jakuchu, and the 20th century visionary, Taro Okamoto, as his mentors, citing both artists’ “out-of-the-box,” liberated originality for inspiring him as an artist.

Jakuchu (1716 ~ 1800) was the Zen painter who retired early from his family business to dedicate his life to creating the most spectacular and meticulous paintings of birds and flowers in the history of Asian art. For Jakuchu, who kept a flock of exotic chickens in his garden, painting was equal parts obsessive observation and spiritual devotion. Jakuchu believed that the natural creatures he depicted were his equals, refusing to paint them until he had identified their “individual spirits.”

Taro Okamoto (1911 ~ 1996) was the avant-garde painter and sculptor who lived in Paris throughout the 1930s, studying with Claude Levi-Strauss. After WWII, Okamoto started over in Japan, where he became fascinated with prehistoric, Jomon-era pottery, which inspired his iconic sculpture, “Tower of the Sun,” commissioned by 1970 Expo in Osaka. Okamoto’s European training led to his passion for Japan’s aesthetic roots to inspire his singular vision.

Linda Hoaglund is a bilingual filmmaker born and raised in Japan. Her filmography includes a trilogy of films about World War II: Wings of Defeat, ANPO: Art X War and Things Left Behind. She is currently completing The Guardians of Edo Avant-Garde, which reveals how Japanese artists of the Edo era (1603 ~ 1868) set the stage for the Modern art movement in the West.

By Linda Hoaglund

By JakuchuBy Taro Okamoto

INNOCENT FOREST 06, 2018Acrylic on canvas

h. 63 x w. 213 in. (160 x 541 cm)Set of three

INNOCENT FOREST 07, 2018Acrylic on canvas

h. 63 x w. 158 in. (160 x 401 cm)Set of two

INNOCENT FOREST 02, 2017Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas h. 63 x w. 102 in. (160 x 260 cm)

Set of two

INNOCENT FOREST 03, 2017Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas h. 63 x w. 102 in. (160 x 260 cm)

Set of two

INNOCENT FOREST 04, 2017Acrylic on canvas

h. 30 x w. 30 in. (76.2 x 76.2 cm)

CIRCLE, 2018Acrylic on canvas

h. 20 7/8 x w. 31 5/8 in. (53 x 80.5 cm)

CHAOTIC HAPPINESS 03, 2016Acrylic on canvas

h. 35 2/5 x w. 57 1/10 in. (90 x 145 cm)

BUSTLE 03, 2016Acrylic on canvas

h. 39 x w. 39 in. (99.1 x 99.1 cm)

DICTATOR, 2016Acrylic on canvas

h. 39 x w. 39 in. (99.1 x 99.1 cm)

BLOOD 05, 2017Acrylic on canvas

h. 24 x w. 24 in. (61 x 61 cm)

I AM, 2016 Acrylic on canvas

h. 23 5/8 x w. 23 5/8 in. (60 x 60 cm)

Shun Sudo in his studio in Tokyo

FRONT: Shun Sudo, MINDSCAPE, 2018; acrylic on canvas; h. 36 x w. 36 in. (91.5 x 91.5 cm)

SHUN SUDO: INNOCENT FOREST

Shun Sudo (b. 1977), based in Tokyo, has been deeply influenced by American pop culture from a young age and has spent his 20s traveling around the United States. When he returned home to Japan in his early 30s, he began working on paintings that reference his creative roots both in Japanese culture and the contemporary street culture of Western life. As a result, Sudo developed two artistic styles that reflect the two different aspects of his personality.

His primary aim is to capture his subject matter in a few stylized brushstrokes—otherwise known as Japanese sumi-e brush stroke painting. He then paints over that image with graffiti pop art which makes for a graphically-animated impression that awakens the eyes, mind, and spirit. In his current series “Innocent Forest,” which contains Sudo’s creations of imaginary animals, which look similar to rabbits, elephants or deer, which wander around the mysterious forest – he projects those animals as himself and the forest as the United States when he traveled in younger years.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2018 Art Miami, FL “Innocent Forest,” Onishi Gallery, NY “Nine Colors,” Seibu Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

2017 Art New York, NY “Paint Over,” Onishi Gallery, NY

2016 Aqua Art Miami, FL “Paint Over,” Onishi Gallery, NY

2015 SCOPE Miami Beach, FL “Paint Over,” Onishi Gallery, NY

CONTACTNana Onishi

nana@onishigallery.com212-695-8035

INNOCENT FOREST 05, 2017 Acrylic on skateboard (wood)h. 31 x w. 8 in. (79 x 20 cm)

521 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

www.onishigallery.com