[Artist Statement]
This exhibition is a group show by four artists who work across painting, printmaking, and installations rooted in those media. We titled this exhibition "Mass: Image" in recognition of the process in art-making—especially the generation of images—where we as artists are compelled to consider the “mass” or weight of both the motifs we choose and the artworks that are ultimately created. Our process begins by discovering motifs (or impulses) in our everyday lives. In translating these into images, we often momentarily forget the original weight these motifs carried. It is only when we confront the new mass embodied in the completed artwork that we, as artists, are given the chance to revisit our initial impulses or encounter them anew. The question of mass in painting and printmaking has a particular resonance in today’s society—especially as we shift toward paperless communication and the digitization of stamps and signatures. When handwritten marks made with pencil or ink stains are replaced by pixels on a digital screen, what is truly happening in that transformation? The texture born from an image through its materials and support, the narrative or emotional residue carried by handwriting, the physical presence of a painting encased in a frame—these are all aspects of mass, as we define it. We hope that encountering our works in the gallery space will offer visitors an opportunity to experience the power of mass in a new and meaningful way. (Participating Artists: Okumura, Tanuma, Nakane, Miyashita)