Ozawa Sakae Tender Earth

signed in English, titled in Japanese and dated 2012 on the reverse

Mori Yu Gallery, Kyoto
Private Asian Collection

This work is generally in good condition. Please note that it was not examined under ultraviolet light.
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Sakae Ozawa

Oftentimes, contemporary Japanese art is equated with the hugely influential Superflat movement as coined by Murakami Takashi, or perhaps seen through the lens of kawaii, as evidenced by Nara Yoshitomo’s adorable oeuvre, or perhaps yet, the splendid Pop images created by Kusama Yayoi. The present sale presents a group of young, emerging, and talented Japanese artists who together represent a departure from such larger movements. Collectively, they represent the artistic forms of minimalism, the figurative, surrealism, and even abstraction. These young artists’ works breathe new life into the discourse of contemporary Japanese art, offering their audiences entirely new perspectives on such an established art form.

Aside from vibrant colour palettes, Sakae Ozawa’s paintings often carry a certain elusive, fairy-tale like quality at the first glance. Often set in a dark jungle, deep forest or underwater, these paintings deliberately instil in their audience the sense of a mysterious wonderland. Certainly the artist’s inspiration stems from the quotidian, such as everyday scenery of plants and animals, however one or two episodes from novels and films still become significant inspirational sources for her. Sakae Ozawa was born in 1980 in Shiga, Japan and graduated from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 2003. She further studied in Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste Wien (The University of Applied Arts, Vienna), and graduated with a top grade among her classmates. Since her graduation, she has been working extensively in Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan. She held several solo exhibitions, most recently “Sakae Ozawa Original painting exhibition” in SUNDAY, Tokyo (2014). She is a represented artist of MORI YU Gallery, Kyoto, where she held some notable exhibitions including “Empty Forest” and “Orchestra Under the Water” (2012), “0.5 Sekunden auf einen Planet” (“0.5 Seconds on a Planet”) (2011), and “Perlenpoesie” (2009). Her works were also exhibited in group exhibitions, most recently in “Fieldwork from Periphery” at Kyoto University of Arts and Design Galerie Aube (2013). She received The Incentive Award of Kouji Kinutani in 2010 and her works are collected in renowned institutions such as The National Museum of Art, Osaka.