Ushio Shinohara

ACTION! Boxing Paintings and Sculptures

May 7, 2016 through July 2, 2016

Deborah Colton Gallery is pleased to present Ushio Shinohara: ACTION! Boxing Paintings and Sculptures. The exhibition features the newest works by the internationally acclaimed Japanese artist, Ushio Shinohara, whose performative paintings are created with boxing gloves he uses like paintbrushes. His flashy, multicolored three-dimensional sculptures are also included in the exhibition, which nearly vibrates with the energy of the twenty-one works that comprise the show.

Born in Tokyo in 1932, Ushio Shinohara (nicknamed “Gyu-chan”) is a Japanese Neo-Dadaist artist and international Pop painter who has lived and worked in the United States since 1969. His parents, a tanka poet and Japanese painter, instilled in him a love for artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. Most recently known for his exuberant boxing paintings, which are artifacts of his performances, Ushio Shinohara works in several mediums, including painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture. His work was featured last year at Deborah Colton Gallery in the grand exhibition Love is a Roar-r-r!, alongside works of his wife, artist Noriko Shinohara, whose series Cutie and the Bullie tells the story of their tumultuous relationship. Both were featured in the Academy Award nominated documentary, Cutie and the Boxer, which depicts their more than 40-year relationship as a couple and as artists.

Ushio Shinohara’s bright and frequently oversized work has been exhibited at prestigious international institutions, including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Centre Georges Pompidou; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Japan Society, New York; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pusa; and is currently exhibiting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Recently, Ushio was also featured in two group exhibitions, one entitled International Pop at the Dallas Museum of Art, and the other The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop at the Tate Modern in London. Earlier last year his work was included in International Pop, a landmark exhibition at the Walker Art Center that chronicles the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the early 1970s. A recent New York Times article on the exhibition mentions: “Ushio Shinohara… engaged in a practice that might have been called punk if the concept had existed then…”

Ushio Shinohara is represented by Deborah Colton Gallery, which was founded as an innovative showcase for ongoing presentation and promotion of strong historical and visionary contemporary artists worldwide, whose diverse practices include painting, works on paper, sculpture, video, photography, performance, conceptual future media, and public space installations. The gallery aspires to provide a forum through connecting Texas, national, and international artists to make a positive change.