YUSUKE WAKATA

Artist in Residence | Exhibition
September 11 – 13, 2018

“Scrape and build-up” has been, through his late Summer residency, a coinage and actual method Yusuke Wakata has employed as foil in developing his photographic bas-relief artwork. In his eyes, it parallels that of building cities where a mixture of human methods attached to myriad of mix-and-match material elements results in depersonalized hybrid buildings and disjointed environments. The end result—as the artist sees it—has culminated in existentially dreadful dwelling localities, where one is unable to enjoy and dream of a bright, utopian future. In order to redeem himself, Wakata expresses this feeling of chaos, confusion and nothingness in the process of artmaking.

Being an active artist in Tokyo and now in New York, he has witnessed a constant and senseless destruction paired to an aesthetically atrocious, unregulated and unlimited growth. Images of Tokyo’s dystopia he now parallels to those he sees happening in New York City, a permeating experience inspiring and guiding his disciplined work.

Yusuke Wakata received the Asia Award Semi Grand Prix from Tokyo Designer’ s Week School exhibition in 2014, the Excellence Award from Musashino Art University Graduation Show in 2017. In 2017, he  participated in the exhibition “Independent Tokyo” and “Independent New York” in the LES, organized by Gallery Tagboat.

He received a BFA from Musashino Art University in 2017 and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Tokyo University of the Arts