Profiles of Contemporary Art and - ARTisSpectrum

Kenji Inoue
Let`s go Drive Acrylic on Canvas 18” x 21”
Shine of Downtown Acrylic on Canvas 52” x 65”
Japanese artist Kenji Inoue creates large paintings of otherworldly
terrains that merge the fantastical images of the imagination with
the familiar landscape of human expression. With careful brushwork
and a soft touch, he infuses an airy, mercurial feel into each painting,
resulting in a transparency of color that expands the scope of his
work. Here, elements of the surreal and the abstract are infused with a
weightiness of meaning that the viewer is left to discover and interpret
for themselves.
A sense of harmony pervades each canvas, a masterful balancing
of color, line, and form that yields compositions both synchronous
in their blending of diverse elements and breathtaking in scope. Yet
simultaneously, a great energy defines each piece, lending a sense
of movement and depth that makes the subjects come alive. Although
Inoue’s approach is almost Dali-like, blending surrealistic and abstract
elements with a careful attention to detail, there is an expressionist
undertone to his work. Mask-like faces, natural forms, and objects both
recognizable and imaginative all reverberate with an unnamed emotive
force, driving the viewer to look deeper to see what each whimsical
world might in fact contain.
The greatest wish of the artist himself is that nothing disrupt the initial
encounter between the viewer and each piece of art. As he explains,
“I never try to discuss or explain my work. . . I leave interpretation
and understanding to the viewers, my audience. I do not add anything
that would interfere with their experience of the work itself, the crucial
movement, almost like the sense of running — something that can only
be felt, not explained.” In the end, Inoue’s work forces us to remain in
the now, in the experience of the profound moment when we come
face to face with the mystery and wonder embedded in each of his
canvases.
In the Blue Acrylic on Canvas 52” x 65”
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Kenji_Inoue.aspx
47 ARTisSpectrum