Yukimasa Ida, Dad, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.
8 Must-See Solo Gallery Shows in October
Yukimasa Ida’s current exhibition, Flaming Memory, at our Chicago space has been featured in Galerie Magazine’s Fall Art & Culture Guide.
"Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of “ichi-go ichi-e,” which translates to “a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” Yukimasa Ida explores the ephemeral nature of life through painterly portraits that merge abstraction with naturalism. Using spatulas, brushes, and bare hands, the Tokyo-based artist employs impasto and wet-on-wet painting techniques to capture fleeting moments by distorting figures and forms, preserving ephemeral memories to create vibrant, flowing figures that he sees as snapshots in time.
Primarily facial abstractions, with the exception of one haunting landscape, his nine new paintings depict people he has met during his travels, as well as several self-portraits and a depiction of dad, whom we assume to be his father. Ida captures the psyche of his subject as well as a distorted memory of them, using color, form, and mark-making in highly engaging ways."
Excerpted words written by Paul Laster.
