Lucie Chang Fine Arts is pleased to present Basics of A Revenge, a solo exhibition of Japanese artist Tai Ogawa. Featuring a new body of works, the show is an ode to Ogawa’s childhood and entertainment culture of Japan, as well as a conscious response to the pandemic and other turning points in his life. Basics of Revenge opens on 18 November and runs until 18 December 2021. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Hong Kong. 

 

As Ogawa explained in his artist statement, his recent practice focuses on creating three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane. Inspired by both analog and digital processes, Ogawa’s works blend abstraction and figuration, reality and fiction, originality and reproductions, constantly defying codified expectations of cultural motifs and their perceptions. His works borrow conventions from sources as diverse as manga, games, sci-fi – which he was immersed in during childhood - to Japanese gangster movies, talks show personalities, and Buddhist iconography, reflecting the fragmentation characteristic of contemporary experience.

 

Testament to his unique style, Don’t repeat yourself takes obvious influences from programming and seamlessly blends with a portrait of his two-year-old daughter who is currently learning to speak, and a motif of Monk Kuya, a holy Japanese monk from the 10th Century. Similarly, Once and Only Once embeds the concept of programming by only allowing himself to paint with limited patterns just like some iPad applications.  

 

Drawing on the artist’s personal experience of mortality, Mind Game, one of the highlight works from the show is an introspection of a turning point in Ogawa’s career. After a severe injury from a bike accident, Ogawa realized instead of creating something just to shock, he wants to leave a legacy. Constantly challenging himself on both his subject matter and artistic style, Ogawa picked up an iPad during the many months on the hospital bed and discovered its design functions which he later re-appropriated into his paintings. Saturated with glowing and electric hues, Mind Game is a visual manifestation of his feelings and contemplations. The multiple cultural influences such as the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights as well as an influential animated Japanese experimental film in the early 2000s, Mind Game, is consistent with Ogawa's oeuvre and encourage reinterpretation of conventional thematics.