05.04. — 24.05.2024


Hiroyuki Abe - The Associative Power of Line

Photo: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München
With "Hiroyuki Abe - The Associative Power of Line", Mikiko Sato Gallery presents the first solo exhibition of artist Hiroyuki Abe, at our main gallery space from April 6 to May 24, 2024. On display are new charcoal and pen drawings on paper and foil as well as etchings. Some of the works will be created in our premises on Klosterwall. The artist will be present at the opening on Friday, April 5, 2024 from 6pm.

Hiroyuki Abe was born in Tokyo in 1984 and initially studied medicine there from 2007 before completing his first artistic training in painting at Musashino Art University from 2009 to 2013, also in the Japanese metropolis. In the following years of study at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich (Department of Painting and Graphic Arts) in the classes of Jorinde Voigt (2016-2019) and later with Johanna Reich (2020-2022), Abe's life then shifted to the Bavarian capital, where the artist still lives and works today. A few years ago, works by the artist were added to the holdings of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München. In 2023, Abe was also nominated for the Bavarian Art Promotion Prize.

Abe's graphic works follow their very own rules of composition. Curved, parallel, sometimes intertwined, elsewhere spiraling, the black lines, always drawn by hand using charcoal, oil pastel, ballpoint pen or acrylic paint, run across the white of the paper. The line structures are regularly reminiscent of organic materials that seem to have been created by either external forces, like spider webs, or elsewhere seem to have grown out of themselves like lichen. Associations with swarms of birds or insects, as well as piles or drifts of (in)organic substances such as sand or pollen, cannot be dismissed either.

The starting point and object of investigation of the works is the line. It forms the beginning of the drawings, which are always made by hand. There are no preliminary sketches or overarching themes. Instead, the works, which are initially open-ended, gradually take on an individual form in the process of attentive examination of the special properties of the materials used. Every sheet of paper, every piece of canvas, and even foil has unique qualities that Abe constantly tries to come to terms with anew. The artist, as he himself once explained, conducts dialogs with the material. Animistic beliefs, which is still firmly anchored in Japanese culture today, are decisive for Abe's appreciation of the material and its "character", which is perceived as partly benevolent and partly unruly.

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