Saitama, Japan, b. 1990

Shuto Okayasu’s work explores the dual nature of the same thing; strange and beautiful, real and imagined, loud and quiet, chaos and harmony. Through the process of art marking, what he considers as an endless practice of recording and rebuilding, he lets his mind travel freely between the two worlds; offline and online, the present and the dream, and the past and the future. In Okayasu’s work, a complicated foreground with a crowd of vivid colors creates contrast with a simple and smooth background. Yet, they harmonize with each other in a consistent lonely quiet mood. Influenced by the sampling technique of hip hop, Okayasu chooses from what he caught visually and auditory in everyday life and his culture; Japanese Edo painting, anime, and cartoon, and combines their essence on canvas to appreciate and represent the world where he belongs to. His world is decadent and surreal, but at the same time, it is true to the actual world in some way and leaves us with hope.