12.06. – 29.07.2006
Hiroshi Sugito
Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Zurich

PRESS RELEASE
The solo show of the Japanese painter Hiroshi Sugito at Arndt & Partner Zurich forms the second part of the exhibition which started last year with paintings from the past 10 years and continues now with recent works. The artist presents a series of large format paintings, a group of monotype prints and drawings on paper, as well as, for the first time, a sculptural piece.
Sugito creates dream-like scenarios in which a playful, child-like figuration, colour field painting and geometric-abstract formal elements fuse into a singular pictorial language. In "Connecting Man" - a polyptych that could be extended endlessly to both sides - hybrid creatures combining man, animal and architecture, drawn with minimal strokes hover within painterly backgrounds of monochrome atmospheric transparency. The works reveal Sugito's interest in western history of art, for example Paul Klee, which he seeks to combine with historical Japanese painting techniques particularly Nihon-ga, emerging in the 19th century, as well as with elements from popular culture. Recurring motifs are illusionistic, stage-like spaces serving as projection surfaces for Sugito's lyrical world view. They can be read as enigmatic metaphors for the unconscious.
Hiroshi Sugito, born in 1970 in Nagoya, Japan, studied at the Aichi Prefectural University of Arts in Aichi, Japan. He lives and works in Nagoya. He has taken part in important exhibitions in venues such as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2001), the Ursula Blickle Foundation, Kraichtal (2002), at the 8th Istanbul Biennale (2003), the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (2003) and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (2004). The series of works made in conjunction with Yoshitomo Nara was presented at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 2004 and at K21 in Düsseldorf in 2005.