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.

Space776 exhibits early to mid-career artists who work in a variety of mediums ranging from live multimedia performance art to traditional oil painting. The gallery accommodates artists from around the globe, taking their works to local and international art fairs such as Volta New York, Volta Basel, Art Miami, Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary, and Art Busan. Space776 was founded in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2013. In 2020, the gallery relocated to its current residence at 37-39 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Space776 also opened a location in Seoul, South Korea in 2020 in accordance with the gallery’s mission to promote the international exchange between local New York artists and the Korean artistic sphere.