The paintings of Tetsuya Ishida address the anxieties of an individual adrift in a world becoming unrecognizable through economic growth and technological advance. His loneliness and crisis of identity are communicated in a series of astonishing canvasses where he is tragically trapped or consumed by his surroundings in a rapidly advancing world where the pressure to conform is often too much to bear.
Although his paintings are wrapped heavily in skepticism, claustrophia and solitude, the works are above all beautiful, touching self-portaits of a man helplessly adrift in a world lacking in meaningful contact with others.
Physically and mentally introverted, as he morphs into a supermarket conveyor belt, a microscope or a urinal; rusted, awkward, used and trampled on, his sober gaze and detailed, subdued handling save these paintings from lapsing into modern caricature and moves them into the realm of something far more meaningful.
His neatly composed, orderly canvasses are painted in minute, obsessive detail. Paint is applied in semi-opaque layers of tiny brushtrokes, a ritualistic approach that convey the therapeutic aspect of Ishida’s painting. The result is a depth and richness that defy the cold, low-key palette that Ishida so often preferred. Traumatised by loss of purpose and identity, angered by the rigid social and educational structure of his native Japan, Ishida reveals his anxiety through his bizarre and original metamorphoses, heightened by his well-resolved, highly effective vision – a simplified schematic style and muted, foreboding colors.
