Wako Works of Art is very pleased to present its third installment of “from/to”, a five-year project started in Summer 2004 aimed to provide a platform for young Japanese artists. This year we have selected two painters, Mitsuhiro Ikeda and Tomohito Ishii, enrolled in the MFA program at Musashino Art University.

Through his works, Mitsuhiro Ikeda displays his painterly skills that appeal to the viewer’s eyes. He employs both abstract and the figurative styles to unravel a story of a solitary figure in a darkened forest and contrastingly colorful snow. But not only do Ikeda’s works render a strong narrative, but also they display the artist’s ability to play with the pure, flat surface to create a distinctively new dimension.

On the other hand, Tomohito Ishii goes through a more systematic process of painting, of photographs that he himself takes. Ishii converts the signals that he receives from his photographs into data, and transfers that data onto a canvas through his brushstrokes. One can compare the density of his brushstrokes to the “resolution” of an image: more concentrated his brushstrokes are, closer the image becomes to being a landscape; and lower the concentration is, more abstract the image appears.