HRD FINE ART

Introduction

HRD Fine Art is delighted to announce an opening of Tsutomu Haraguchi's solo exhibition titled "New-Type Advertisement," which will be on view from September 9th through October 21st, 2023.

Tsutomu Haraguchi was born in Kumamoto in 1973. Almost a thoroughly self-taught artist, Haraguchi had previously produced artworks based on comic-drawing techniques under a pseudonym "Art Horymen" for a long time, before reverting back to his real name in 2019, when he started working on canvas and using oil paints and other "traditional" painting materials. Now he is energetically creating artworks, fusing marker pen drawings and oil-on-canvas painterly approach, where he touches on such themes as image-ridden modern consumerist society and media environment, East-West conflict and North-South divide in contemporary art, and center-periphery hierarchies. Not stopping there, though, he also works on large scale installations based on local history and acts as curator to produce exhibitions.

In this exhibition, Haraguchi will present paintings from his latest series "New-Type Advertisement," which is an extension from his "Global" series that focuses on globalism and locality. He incorporates all-too-familiar trademarks, logos, symbols, and mascots of international corporations and brands, which already form integral parts of our modern life, into his painting and showcase it as if to "advertise" those images. Boldly but cynically tracing American Pop-Art, this Japanese artist's works can even be seen as "landscape paintings" of our contemporary world.

Haraguchi's art has been recently expanding its radius, from his native Kumamoto/Kyushu to Asia and beyond. This exhibition marks his first solo presentation in Kansai region.

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Artist's Statement

I encountered a Campbell Soup can through contemporary art. I can imagine that it's a popular product in the U.S., but living here in Japan, we rarely see and eat actual Campbell Soup products: it's definitely more about an artwork in a museum.

As I was pondering over this perception gap, one phrase just popped up in my mind: "Contemporary painting can function as an advertisement."

The paintings I am presenting under the title "New-Type Advertisement" look over the global human society, namely rockets, automobiles, hamburgers, bottled waters, clothes, rock music, etc. They are literally a new kind of advertisement, which no one has commissioned me to create.

- Tsutomu Haraguchi