Ryotaro Endo: 『Painting Field』

This is the first national or international exhibition of the artist’s work to showcase a series of works on paper. In an era saturated with pretentious realist work striving to meet public demand, Endo’s abstract painterly works are difficult to place. Much of the image is occupied by inkjet prints created using digital tools, but while some forms are readily recognizable most of the surrounding image is devoted to an indiscernible jumble of line and color. At first glance the works appear completely flat, but smooth brushwork becomes visible on closer inspection.

What makes Endo’s work so difficult to discuss alongside that of his contemporaries, is that his impetus comes from an intense re-investigation of the fundamental nature of the roots of painting itself; A fitting foundation for an artist of our era, standing on the bloated mass that is art history. It is this deep skepticism that drives Endo to reach for a style of painting that pushes the boundaries of expression and surpasses the medium itself.

The exhibition features over 70 works on paper – each constructed by weaving images of trees together with sharp lined inkjet prints and painted areas – revealing to us the future of painting. And while these 70-something works are linked by the common image of trees, each new branch lends a fresh sense of freedom to the picture plane. Unencumbered by the binds of observation and the preexisting form, the constant variation on a theme that emerges reveals eroticism inherent in the medium of painting itself. As Endo ‘plants’ his forest one tree at a time he steps away from theory and high concept to offer viewers a taste of the true essence of painting.