Ichikawa Kosuke has been creating works with motifs of landscapes in fleeting memories that seem to fade away.
The artist depicts his own vague memories of past experiences and images as if they were enveloped in smoke, by using incense sticks of different temperature and thickness to scorch the paper.
Titled “murmur,” this exhibition showcases 13 new works, including a large-scale work comprised of a four-panel set.
2022
Burnt paper mounted on natural wood panel
75×100 cm
2022
Burnt paper
60×60 cm
2022
Burnt paper
55×75 cm
© Kosuke Ichikawa/Soni. & Co. All Rights Reserved.
Ichikawa Kosuke
Ichikawa Kosuke is an artist born in Japan.
At the age of thirteen, he saved up money from his scaffolding job and moved to New York by himself without apparent reasons or purposes.
He encountered paintings during his journey to the United States and Europe, which later led him to the devoted production of works in a variety of styles that he arrived at through self-study. Ichikawa tried out different styles such as music and images while interacting with phenomenal geniuses from various fields, which has contributed to broaden his horizons as an artist and painter.
After returning to Japan, he created a picture with a new, original style of using delicate incense stick flames. This piece was described as the “Incense Stick Painting,” which significantly shifted the idea of contemporary paintings and immensely attracted media attention.
Today, Ichikawa picks and chooses the right incense sticks out of more than 60 different kinds in temperature and thickness, and uses them to create freehand depictions of his subjects by scorching pieces of paper.
Singed with delicate incense stick flame, Ichikawa’s works made out of the fleeting memories from his unique boyhood have received worldwide attention.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2011
- FLOWERS, NADiff Gallery, Tokyo
- 2012
- frozen, SPROUT Curation, Tokyo
- 2013
- CLOCK MOVEMENT WATCH, NADiff Gallery, Tokyo
- 2017
- grace note, ES gallery, Tokyo
- 2018
- Hello, stranger!, POST, Tokyo
- 2019
- ODDS & SODS, BOOKMARC, Tokyo
Forest, traveling carnivals, leaves, and dried ivies.
The forest through which I wandered with the light of a flashlight; the forest in my mind which constantly changes, spreads, and disappears in my memory. From the corner of my eye, I would casually notice the ivies creeping up the roadside trees and walls. I can’t even remember where I saw them; the dried ivies that bear the fleeting and faint memories, hidden deep within my subconscious and yet continuing to grow and spread... And they keep disappearing.
The bird’s-eye view of the traveling carnival that remains in the corner of my memory - I wonder if it was really what I saw and experienced, or whether if it was something from a film, book, novel, TV or music, which I now mistakenly believe to be the real experience. Everything is all jumbled up now.
Burning and breaking the paper as though I was tracing the fading fragments of my memory, I draw the same situation, the same place, and the same-time event over and over again.
Only the passage of my time is left behind in the image.
- Ichikawa Kosuke