SHINICHI HARA
Shinichi Hara used to be a famous graphic designer to work on CD covers by various Japanese musicians, and such CD sales reached out to one hundred million. On the other hand he got involved with numerous product designs like music robot, “MIURO”. He started to have a solo show at SIX/FIVE/TWO gallery, supported by David Hockney in Los Angeles in 1985. His artistic activity expanded gradually to a solo exhibition in New York, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Although the recent remarkable work by Hara is “Energy Series”, he has launched a new theme, “POP” to create and release “Love Dog” series since 2020.
An art critique, Taisuke Morishita explains the works created by Shinichi Hara as follows:
Ever since the Greeks, Western philosophy has been grounded on a dualistic outlook. For example, opposites like good and evil and what exists and what doesn’t. Shinichi Hara’s work similarly handles two contending elements in its themes. That is to say, there’s the interplay of concepts of light and shadow (yin and yang), death and rebirth, and micro and macro. The most prominent being the contrasts between Western and Eastern, and analog and digital. However, unlike in the case of the confronted dichoto- mies of Western philosophy, the contradicting concepts he deals with seem to merge rather than confront each other.
As far as pictorial structures are concerned, the work can be seen in the context of global contemporary painting. It goes beyond Pop Art or Simulationism. And perhaps, there is also an aspect in it that reconstructs post-modern painting after Jasper Johns with a sense of the present. Even today’s graffiti-informed styles seem to be somehow assimilated in his work. The flowing of energy, often drawn in single strokes of vivid white, is reminiscent of traditional Japanese designs like those of the Rimpa school and Hokusai. In other words, he is endowed with a dynamism that integrates all of the aesthetic elements that have impressed him in his life, which are superbly distilled within a technique that is verily his own.
His ability to harmonize the inhuman digital and the organic analog on the same picture is particularly worthy of attention. Just as Jeff Koons was once a financial commodity broker in New York and was able to make art out of capitalism, Hara, once a system engineer at NEC, is capable of sublimating the digital realm’s binary system in the context of conceptual art in his present role as an artist.
Taisuke Morishita (Art Critic) (Translation: Aquiles Hadjis), A Transcendental Painting that Merges Opposites
WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
2019 to 2020: Assumed position as a Creative Director for the “Connect & Hope for World Peace” (Official Program to Support the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games) 2007: Robot Award from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Technical Innovations Award from The Robotics Society of Japan. Currently taking part in the visual branding of corporate CI.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
1985 Solo Exhibition, "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Sixfive / Two / Gallery in Los Angeles
(Extoled and supported by David Hockney)
1997 Solo Exhibition, "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Spiral Garden in Tokyo, Japan
1997 Solo Exhibition, "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Cast Iron Gallery in New York, USA
1997 Solo Exhibition, "Shinichi Hara Exhibition"at Hotel Nikko Biverly Hills in Los Angeles, USA
1997 Solo Exhibition, "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Art Core Center in Los Angeles, USA
2009 Group Show at Art Singapore, Singapore
2009 Solo Exhibition "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Shonandai My Gallery in Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan
2009 Group Show at International Arr Fair Kunstart 09, Italy
2010 Group Show at International Arr Fair Kunstart 10, Italy
2010 Solo Exhibition "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Saidaiji Temple in Nara, Japan
2011 Solo Exhibition "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Shonandai My Gallery in Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan
2012 Group Show at New City Art Fair in New York, USA
2015 Solo Exhibition "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Takashimaya Art Gallery (Nihonbashi, Shinjuku)
in Tokyo, Japan
2017 Solo Exhibition"Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at Daimaru Matsuzakaya, Japan
2017 "Shinichi Hara Exhibition" at GSIX, Artglorieux in Tokyo, Japan
2019 Group Show at Art Fair Tokyo 2019 from Sho+1 booth in Tokyo, Japan
2020 Group Show at Art TNZ, Tokyo from Sho+1 booth in Tokyo, Japan
2021 Group Show at Art Fair Tokyo 2021 from Sho+1 booth in Tokyo, Japan
