Hideaki Kawashima

Born 1969 in Aichi, Japan
Lives and works in Japan

After graduating from Tokyo Zokei University in 1991, Hideaki Kawashima undertook 2 years of training with the esoteric Tendai Buddhist sect at the Hieizan Enryakuji Temple. The subject of his portraiture embraces various emotions and expressions in a silent atmosphere, while we also feel our own strength and weakness inside ourselves in tension in his work. Since Hideaki Kawashima held his first solo exhibition at Tomio Koyama Gallery in 2003, he has continued to develop his abstracted portraiture. In his paintings, the subject’s face alone floats lightly in the air against a plain background, with long trailing hair that seems to express something of the unearthly allowing us to imagine more a human soul than a human being. The Artist has identified himself with these portraits.
However, from around 2010, wishing once more to return a overly bloated self-consciousness away from such intensely inward-gazing introspection to neutrality, he began to turn his perspective towards other people. The subjects of his portraits each possess a sense of body: each is painted with distinct hair-styles and clothing. As if rendered in ideal model form, it is as if in each their full personality has been released.

Kawashima shows in many institutions internationally and domestically. His recent solo exhibitions were in 2014 at Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA and at 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan. (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo)

TOMIO KOYAMA GALLERY

Conclusion

Hideaki Kawashima