Yutaka is best known for his paintings and mixed-media work depicting, on the surface, gripping urban nightmares, but also emphasizing the cutting grotesque beauty within them. In ‘Scurryshoal’, inner city junkyard staples  like abandoned fruit boxes, perspex chairs and kitchen sinks star in a Dali-esque canvas of decay whilst photo-transfers of ferocious nuts, bolts and scissors aggregated into ant-like colonies (‘Cloyclout 2’) resemble the ultimate urban nightmare – machine revenge.  “I look for hope in these symbols of overpopulation and city life,”  Yutaka explains “I’ve lived in Tokyo and London for all my life and you can so easily become consumed by the ferocity of the pace of living, and all the material needs that comes with it”. For Yutaka, seeking these hints of pulchritude are means of escape and add an air of mystery to daily life. ‘I take pictures of everything that we take for granted but in a context which lends another meaning to the objects, say a platinum wig on a dirty road, piles of kitchen knives lying on a floor of an unopened cafe - both beg the question ‘what happened’?’. He takes elements from these stories he perceives and transforms them into a canvas of narratives – for instance, line drawings like ‘Amalgamadroit’ take the viewer through a stream of consciousness journey of mechanical limbs and mannequins, all poised for flight or fight – as if sensing an Armageddon that only they are aware of.

Yutaka Inagawa’s solo exhibitions in Paris, New York, London and Tokyo have previously gained him a steady stream of loyal supporters, who recognize and engage with the poetry of his sometimes harsh but cohesive and progressive works. Tutored at Chelsea College of Art and at Tokyo University of the Arts, and tutoring at Shinjyuku art College in Tokyo, his upbringing (he was born in 1974) in boom-time Tokyo, which saw a traditional city transformed in to ultimate megalopolis,  provided the insight that underlies his surreal interpretations of chaotic modern life.

‘Sensory Cocktails’, is divided into three sections spanning the Gallery Zandari in Seoul, seamlessly bringing together his paintings (including his photo-collages), line drawings and multimedia work (mostly with Tokyo-based animator Kenichi Okada) to create a stunning and timely retrospective of this young, talented artist’s body of work so far. 

Click here for the newly launched YUTAKA INAGAWA WEBSITE

‘Sensory Cocktails’ by Yutaka Inagawa,
until end July 2009

370-12 Seokyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul Korea 121-383