Current Exhibition: Kenzi Shiokava Through July 15, 2023 Nonaka-Hill is honored to announce the representation of the estate of Kenzi Shiokava (1938-2021). For over 50 years, Shiokava lovingly transformed found materials into syncretic sculptures that spoke to the heart of transcontinental experience. This is reflected in his multicultural origin story, but also in his intellectual proximity to seminal Los Angeles artists like John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, and Noah Purifoy. Akin to them, Shiokava tacitly addressed his heritage in assemblage, making his works key exemplars of the diasporic condition. Image: Kenzi Shiokava Untitled (Shaman Series) , n.d. Glass, shell, yarn, pine wood 62 x 12 1/2 x 11 1/2 in 157.5 x 31.8 x 29.2 cm Untitled, c. 1999 Metal, wood, egg, plant 22 1/2 x 16 x 10 in 57.1 x 40.6 x 25.4 cm #kenzishiokava #sculpture #nonakahill #losangeles

Current Exhibition: Kenzi Shiokava June 3 – July 15, 2023 Opening Reception: June 3, 6-8pm Nonaka-Hill is honored to announce the representation of the estate of Kenzi Shiokava (1938-2021). For over 50 years, Shiokava lovingly transformed found materials into syncretic sculptures that spoke to the heart of transcontinental experience. This is reflected in his multicultural origin story, but also in his intellectual proximity to seminal Los Angeles artists like John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, and Noah Purifoy. Akin to them, Shiokava tacitly addressed his heritage in assemblage, making his works key exemplars of the diasporic condition. The roots of his practice can be found in Brazil, where he was born and raised by Japanese migrant parents; Shiokava would not visit their homeland until much later in life. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1964 where he lived until his death, becoming a citizen and bringing his American experience to his Japanese-Brazilian heritage. He began his formal art training in the late 1960s as a painter at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), before shifting to sculpture, a medium that unlocked a prism of influence: Indigenous American, African American, Brazilian, Japanese, and American bricolage traditions suddenly informed his use of materials—all of which were procured from the frayed edges of Los Angeles’s infrastructure. This included railroad ties and segments of telephone poles, which over the course of several years Shiokava carved into animistic totems. In manipulating their textures, he exposed the differences between his smoothing hand and that of Southern California’s natural wonders: smog, wind, and sun. One cannot help but reference Noah Purifoy’s monumental series 66 Signs of Neon (1966), forged from the flotsam and jetsam of the 1965 Watts uprising, another class of natural events; but it spoke to the emotional and archeological potential, which Shiokava later embraced, of materials gleaned from the streets. Image: Kenzi Shiokava Kimono, 2010 Wood, paint, sign skin 74 x 36 x 1 1/4 in 188 x 91.4 x 3.2 cm #kenzishiokava #nonakahill #losangeles

Upcoming: Kenzi Shiokava June 3 – July 15, 2023 Opening Reception: June 3, 6-8pm Nonaka-Hill is honored to announce the representation of the estate of Kenzi Shiokava (1938-2021). For over 50 years, Shiokava lovingly transformed found materials into syncretic sculptures that spoke to the heart of transcontinental experience. This is reflected in his multicultural origin story, but also in his intellectual proximity to seminal Los Angeles artists like John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, and Noah Purifoy. Akin to them, Shiokava tacitly addressed his heritage in assemblage, making his works key exemplars of the diasporic condition. The roots of his practice can be found in Brazil, where he was born and raised by Japanese migrant parents; Shiokava would not visit their homeland until much later in life. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1964 where he lived until his death, becoming a citizen and bringing his American experience to his Japanese-Brazilian heritage. He began his formal art training in the late 1960s as a painter at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), before shifting to sculpture, a medium that unlocked a prism of influence: Indigenous American, African American, Brazilian, Japanese, and American bricolage traditions suddenly informed his use of materials—all of which were procured from the frayed edges of Los Angeles’s infrastructure. This included railroad ties and segments of telephone poles, which over the course of several years Shiokava carved into animistic totems. In manipulating their textures, he exposed the differences between his smoothing hand and that of Southern California’s natural wonders: smog, wind, and sun. One cannot help but reference Noah Purifoy’s monumental series 66 Signs of Neon (1966), forged from the flotsam and jetsam of the 1965 Watts uprising, another class of natural events; but it spoke to the emotional and archeological potential, which Shiokava later embraced, of materials gleaned from the streets. #kenzishiokava #nonakahill #losangeles

“Blue Wind,” a group exhibition of paintings by Zenzaburo Kojima, Daisuke Fukunaga, Ulala Imai and Hiroshi Sugito is currently on view at High Art. The four artists exhibit with Nonaka-Hill, a Japan focused gallery in Los Angeles. High Art’s invitation of Nonaka-Hill to prepare an exhibition for its Arles space, brought an opportunity to acknowledge the multi-generational aesthetic interchange between France and Japan, omnipresent from Europe’s Modern Art period (1860s) and Japan’s concurrent Meiji era (1868-1912). The exhibition includes three works produced in France between 1925-1928 by pioneering Yōga (Western Style) artist Zenzaburo Kojima alongside paintings by contemporary artists working in Japan within today’s fully globalized aesthetic possibilities. Nonaka-Hill + High Art, Arles “Blue Wind” April 29 - July 8, 2023 19 rue de la Madeleine, 13200 Arles, France #NonakaHill #HighArtArles #ZenzaburoKojima #DaisukeFukunaga #UlalaImai #hiroshisugito

Upcoming: Kenzi Shiokava June 3 – July 15, 2023 Opening Reception: June 3, 6-8pm Nonaka-Hill is honored to announce the representation of the estate of Kenzi Shiokava (1938-2021). For over 50 years, Shiokava lovingly transformed found materials into syncretic sculptures that spoke to the heart of transcontinental experience. This is reflected in his multicultural origin story, but also in his intellectual proximity to seminal Los Angeles artists like John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, and Noah Purifoy. Akin to them, Shiokava tacitly addressed his heritage in assemblage, making his works key exemplars of the diasporic condition. The roots of his practice can be found in Brazil, where he was born and raised by Japanese migrant parents; Shiokava would not visit their homeland until much later in life. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1964 where he lived until his death, becoming a citizen and bringing his American experience to his Japanese-Brazilian heritage. He began his formal art training in the late 1960s as a painter at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), before shifting to sculpture, a medium that unlocked a prism of influence: Indigenous American, African American, Brazilian, Japanese, and American bricolage traditions suddenly informed his use of materials—all of which were procured from the frayed edges of Los Angeles’s infrastructure. This included railroad ties and segments of telephone poles, which over the course of several years Shiokava carved into animistic totems. In manipulating their textures, he exposed the differences between his smoothing hand and that of Southern California’s natural wonders: smog, wind, and sun. One cannot help but reference Noah Purifoy’s monumental series 66 Signs of Neon (1966), forged from the flotsam and jetsam of the 1965 Watts uprising, another class of natural events; but it spoke to the emotional and archeological potential, which Shiokava later embraced, of materials gleaned from the streets. #kenzishiokava #nonakahill #losangeles

Today is the last day of Masaomi Yasunaga's exhibition. 石拾いからの発見 discoveries from picking up stones Through May 20, 2023 Nonaka-Hill (Highland) 720 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 Yasunaga’s process has an alchemical and metaphysical dimension: he views fire as a filter and the kiln as a time machine; the fire filters out his ego’s intentions while the kiln advances (or restores) his sculptures to their primal, immanent state. This lends them a paradoxically archaic and futuristic quality, an estrangement from how we perceive organic materials in relation to geologic time. In this way, Yasunaga sees his practice as a way to create psychic distance between us and the object; of using the appearances of ancient relics and artifacts to see into what he calls “the other side of the mountain,” that mysterious landscape we know exists, but cannot see externally. It is here that the object is perceived ambiguously, where we fill gaps in our understanding with our feelings and imagination. Raised in a devout Catholic family in Japan, Yasunaga’s aesthetic lexicon was formed within the metaphors and rituals of the Mediterranean religion. His range of vessel forms appear familiar, as if archeological or shipwrecked relics. These global vessel forms evoke the Japanese concept of Mono no aware, the embrace of a gentle melancholia about transience being a reality of life. Image: Masaomi Yasunaga 石の器 Stone vessel, 2021 Glaze, Colored glaze, Colored 16 3/8 x 11 1/4 x 11 5/8 in 41.5 x 28.5 x 29.5 cm #masaomiyasunaga #glaze #nonakahill #losangeles @masaomi_yasunaga

Current exhibition Kokuta Suda Okukō 憶劫 Through May 27, 2023 Location: Nonaka-Hill (Melrose) 6917 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038, United States Nonaka-Hill is pleased to present Kokuta Suda: Okukō, the first American solo gallery exhibition for the artist. Suda (須田 剋太, 1906-1990) was a pioneer for merging abstraction and calligraphy, for his raw spontaneity with various media; and for maximizing their tactile potentials with embossing, impasto, and even affixed stones. His paintings and works on paper do not pull us into pictorial space as much as affirm their objecthood: they are records of physical phenomena born at the junction between chance, intervention, and material.   A difficult artist to categorize by virtue of his shifting practices, Suda worked in figuration for twenty years before transitioning to abstraction in the 1950s. In 1952, he founded Genbi (Modern Art Discussion Group), which included Jiro Yoshihara (1905-1972), the future leader of Gutai. Yoshihara later invited Suda to join Gutai, but he declined, choosing to forge his own path instead; this included several shifts in style over the decades, including a lasting engagement with calligraphy and re-engagement with figuration. Image: Kokuta Suda Active Nothing-Like Thing 能動的無的主体, 1958 Pastel, gouache and pencil on paper, framed 12 5/8 x 9 7/8 in (32 x 25 cm) 13 3/8 x 10 5/8 in framed (34 x 27 cm framed) #kokutasuda #painting #nonakahill #losangeles

Masaomi Yasunaga 石拾いからの発見 discoveries from picking up stones Through May 20, 2023 Nonaka-Hill (Highland) 720 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 Yasunaga’s process has an alchemical and metaphysical dimension: he views fire as a filter and the kiln as a time machine; the fire filters out his ego’s intentions while the kiln advances (or restores) his sculptures to their primal, immanent state. This lends them a paradoxically archaic and futuristic quality, an estrangement from how we perceive organic materials in relation to geologic time. In this way, Yasunaga sees his practice as a way to create psychic distance between us and the object; of using the appearances of ancient relics and artifacts to see into what he calls “the other side of the mountain,” that mysterious landscape we know exists, but cannot see externally. It is here that the object is perceived ambiguously, where we fill gaps in our understanding with our feelings and imagination. Raised in a devout Catholic family in Japan, Yasunaga’s aesthetic lexicon was formed within the metaphors and rituals of the Mediterranean religion. His range of vessel forms appear familiar, as if archeological or shipwrecked relics. These global vessel forms evoke the Japanese concept of Mono no aware, the embrace of a gentle melancholia about transience being a reality of life. Image: Masaomi Yasunaga Accumulation, 2021 Glaze, colored glaze, clay, kaolin 12 x 8 1/8 x 7 1/8 in 30.5 x 20.5 x 18 cm #masaomiyasunaga #glaze #nonakahill #losangeles

Current exhibition Kokuta Suda Okukō 憶劫 Through May 27, 2023 Location: Nonaka-Hill (Melrose) 6917 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038, United States Nonaka-Hill is pleased to present Kokuta Suda: Okukō, the first American solo gallery exhibition for the artist. Suda (須田 剋太, 1906-1990) was a pioneer for merging abstraction and calligraphy, for his raw spontaneity with various media; and for maximizing their tactile potentials with embossing, impasto, and even affixed stones. His paintings and works on paper do not pull us into pictorial space as much as affirm their objecthood: they are records of physical phenomena born at the junction between chance, intervention, and material.   A difficult artist to categorize by virtue of his shifting practices, Suda worked in figuration for twenty years before transitioning to abstraction in the 1950s. In 1952, he founded Genbi (Modern Art Discussion Group), which included Jiro Yoshihara (1905-1972), the future leader of Gutai. Yoshihara later invited Suda to join Gutai, but he declined, choosing to forge his own path instead; this included several shifts in style over the decades, including a lasting engagement with calligraphy and re-engagement with figuration. Image: Kokuta Suda Abstraction 抽象, 1968 Gouache on paper, framed 45 1/4 x 35 3/8 in (115 x 90 cm) 46 7/8 x 37 in framed (119 x 94 cm framed) #kokutasuda #painting #nonakahill #losangeles

Masaomi Yasunaga 石拾いからの発見 discoveries from picking up stones Through May 20, 2023 Nonaka-Hill (Highland) 720 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 Yasunaga’s process has an alchemical and metaphysical dimension: he views fire as a filter and the kiln as a time machine; the fire filters out his ego’s intentions while the kiln advances (or restores) his sculptures to their primal, immanent state. This lends them a paradoxically archaic and futuristic quality, an estrangement from how we perceive organic materials in relation to geologic time. In this way, Yasunaga sees his practice as a way to create psychic distance between us and the object; of using the appearances of ancient relics and artifacts to see into what he calls “the other side of the mountain,” that mysterious landscape we know exists, but cannot see externally. It is here that the object is perceived ambiguously, where we fill gaps in our understanding with our feelings and imagination. Raised in a devout Catholic family in Japan, Yasunaga’s aesthetic lexicon was formed within the metaphors and rituals of the Mediterranean religion. His range of vessel forms appear familiar, as if archeological or shipwrecked relics. These global vessel forms evoke the Japanese concept of Mono no aware, the embrace of a gentle melancholia about transience being a reality of life. #masaomiyasunaga #glaze #glass #nonakahill #losangeles

Current exhibition Kokuta Suda Okukō 憶劫 Through May 27, 2023 Location: Nonaka-Hill (Melrose) 6917 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038, United States Nonaka-Hill is pleased to present Kokuta Suda: Okukō, the first American solo gallery exhibition for the artist. Suda (須田 剋太, 1906-1990) was a pioneer for merging abstraction and calligraphy, for his raw spontaneity with various media; and for maximizing their tactile potentials with embossing, impasto, and even affixed stones. His paintings and works on paper do not pull us into pictorial space as much as affirm their objecthood: they are records of physical phenomena born at the junction between chance, intervention, and material.   A difficult artist to categorize by virtue of his shifting practices, Suda worked in figuration for twenty years before transitioning to abstraction in the 1950s. In 1952, he founded Genbi (Modern Art Discussion Group), which included Jiro Yoshihara (1905-1972), the future leader of Gutai. Yoshihara later invited Suda to join Gutai, but he declined, choosing to forge his own path instead; this included several shifts in style over the decades, including a lasting engagement with calligraphy and re-engagement with figuration. Image: Kokuta Suda Abstraction 抽象, 1960 Oil, mineral colors and lithic flake on paper 28 3/4 x 24 in (73 x 61 cm) 29 3/8 x 24 1/2 in framed (74.6 x 62.2 cm framed) #kokutasuda #painting #nonakahill #losangeles

Masaomi Yasunaga 石拾いからの発見 discoveries from picking up stones Through May 20, 2023 Nonaka-Hill (Highland) 720 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 Yasunaga’s process has an alchemical and metaphysical dimension: he views fire as a filter and the kiln as a time machine; the fire filters out his ego’s intentions while the kiln advances (or restores) his sculptures to their primal, immanent state. This lends them a paradoxically archaic and futuristic quality, an estrangement from how we perceive organic materials in relation to geologic time. In this way, Yasunaga sees his practice as a way to create psychic distance between us and the object; of using the appearances of ancient relics and artifacts to see into what he calls “the other side of the mountain,” that mysterious landscape we know exists, but cannot see externally. It is here that the object is perceived ambiguously, where we fill gaps in our understanding with our feelings and imagination. Raised in a devout Catholic family in Japan, Yasunaga’s aesthetic lexicon was formed within the metaphors and rituals of the Mediterranean religion. His range of vessel forms appear familiar, as if archeological or shipwrecked relics. These global vessel forms evoke the Japanese concept of Mono no aware, the embrace of a gentle melancholia about transience being a reality of life. Image: Masaomi Yasunaga, 熔ける器 Melting vessel, 2022 Glaze, clay, kaolin 37 3/4 x 38 1/4 x 39 3/8 in 96 x 97 x 100 cm #masaomiyasunaga #glaze #nonakahill #losangeles