Yoichi Umetsu at Gallery Honjoh

His works – portraits and still-lives – are based on newspaper clips, and they also seem to be quoting and deconstructing Japanese art history, drawing attention to technique.

An oil painting, referencing a century-old Japanese impressionist painting, contains a blur distorting the scene. The detailed portraits in brass and silver pen points have the air of detailed daguerreotypes, but as the oils include a distortion, here in the form of the gauzy edges.

The subjects seem to have been chosen based on some nostalgia for the past, as in the case of the centerpiece drawn from a newspaper clip, the figure of a young man in a dated school uniform.

I felt the passage of time and foresaw the deterioration of the artworks. The future of the drawings made with brass and silver pen points will reveal itself with time, as they perhaps will change their colors.