01.07.2015 > 18.09.2015
Text by Paul D’Agostino: Sharable Joys in the Paintings of Osamu Kobayashi
It is in his very operative motion, in his ostensibly slow, meditative pictorial gesture, that a careful viewer begins to perceive, in the exquisite works of the young American painter Osamu Kobayashi, a fervid sense of joy that is not merely formal, chromatic and compositional, but also procedural, inherent and material.
The joy in question is that of the physical application of paint, of the laying down of colors—so very brilliant, rich and pure, in Kobayashi’s works, yet also selective, as he limits his palette only to those colors deemed most necessary. It is the joy of the very process, both temporal and creative, of moving material around from one part of the canvas to another, and of incising it, in that most mysterious and intriguing manner that is a hallmark of successful paintings, with airs of expressivity, novelty, and uniqueness and singularity of act. Also incised deeply into Kobayashi’s works—and thus readily visible and visibly tangible in his compositions in their entirety—are the very traces, often long and indulgent, of the artist’s brush, a record of the elemental stages that both form and inform each work. So immediately perceivable, so palpable, so easy to follow, these traces are legible like footprints along a path in a journey of looking—and they can be read within, beneath and beyond the paintings themselves.
To be sure, this is a most shareable joy. It belongs to the painter and the viewer alike. Kobayashi invites audiences to join him not only in the execution of works, which might be likened to a formal, pictorial journey, but also to feel—alongside him, as well as in his absence—the certain sense of happiness, however fleeting or ephemeral, that is an integral part of making a painting. While looking at his works, one can sense not only the gesture of his arm, but also the resistance of the paint. Evidence of his creative act, therefore, is everywhere apparent; it can be seen from one form to the next, from one corner to another, from one luminous color to the luminosities of all the rest.
Kobayashi’s most recent works—a selection of which constitute the exhibition OK!, at A+B contemporary art—demonstrate this joy, or rather these joys, more than ever. Suggestive of skies and seas, his bright blues carry the viewer along in their subtly shifting, undulatory motions. A barely purple sun bursts brilliantly in rays incised into a broad pink sky. Cruciform lines both delimit and interrupt the colors that move alongside and around them. Here, a turn. There, a halt. Elsewhere, lines and incisions move on straight ahead.
It is anything but static, this sense of joy. Enjoy the act of looking, as such, and buon viaggio.
Paul D’Agostino, Ph.D. is an artist, writer, translator and professor living in Brooklyn, New York. He is also Director of Centotto, an art gallery located in the living room of his Bushwick loft. Information at www.centotto.com.