Paintings by Katsumi Kimoto

OCTOBER 14 - NOVEMBER 12, 2016 Painting mainly abstract artworks over the last 20 years and having worked in galleries the last 15 years are the experiences that have inspired Katsumi Kimoto to produce his current body of work. I’ve been watching people view abstract works my whole career and it’s always interesting to see how people react and what they see for themselves. It’s for this reason that I’ve painted this series, titled Pareidolia, says Kimoto, now 40. Pareidol...ia is our mind’s tendency and ability to see things, within a minimal amount of stimuli, such as faces, animals or objects. For example, it’s the same phenomenon that allows us to see things in cloud formations. Pareidolia is also famous in psychology due to the Rorschach ink-blot test, whereby the test subject are asked to share what images they perceive in random patterns, to interpret their mental state. It’s a freeing process for Kimoto, I no longer have to abstract a thing and represent that thing in a meaningful way to me, instead I can create the abstract image to speak for itself and to be interpeted by the viewer, and let it go. Which, is essentially what you do when you release an abstract piece, as many people interpret it however they choose to, except now the main difference is that I’m painting works for that purpose. Naturally, I must still sign off on the artwork as being complete and meeting my own artistic expectations. And with each artwork in the series, they receive a similar title, Pareidolia, plus the month/year/order they were produced, no other title will be publicly labelled.

2015 Exhibition and series of abstract ocean scape acrylic paintings, finished with resin. My goal with Kuroshio is to pay tribute to the formative years I spent on the Pacific Ocean, which has profoundly influenced both my life and my pursuit as an artist. The Kuroshio was the name of my late Father’s commercial fishing boat, where I spent many years working with my father, on the open sea. The boat was named after the warm North Pacific ocean current, known for its dark blu...e waters, which flows from the Sea of Japan and makes its way to Canada, something I feel a natural affinity to being of a Japanese-Canadian heritage. As an artist, I often contemplated painting the ocean and how I would capture the movement of the water in an abstract form, the reflection of light and the colours of its depths and different environments. I have always found the ocean to be a powerful living force, seemingly breathing with each swell, endlessly moving and so beautiful in its every forms and times; from quiet, calm mornings and reflective sunsets, to the thunderous, crashing and stirring with the storms. With this series, I have focused on using the flowing qualities of liquid acrylic paint to emulate the perpetual movement of the ocean by using repetition and pattern to create visual currents and directions. I hope to inspire viewers to explore the paintings as a whole through the glossy resin finish of the painting to the various interpolating layers painted underneath, creating that feeling of an undulating surface as your eyes fixate wide openly in the water, entranced in the wonder of nature’s unparalleled beauty.

Just finished getting some new works on the studio walls for the Eastside Culture Crawl, which is opening tomorrow night and goes until Sunday! Come on by my studio for a visit (#108 1000 Parker St.) http://culturecrawl.ca/artists/katsumi-kimoto

EXHIBITION DATES April 5 - 19, 2014 OPENING RECEPTION April 5, Saturday afternoon... 24PM See more

Please, visit me this Sunday, July 15th, at 2pm at my studio: http://www.eastsideculturecrawl.com//intimate-studio-visit