Yoshimi Arts is pleased to present “Balm”, a solo exhibition by Yugo Kohrogi.

Through the physical act of “drawing”, humans have expressed the inexpressible. In the millennia-long history of art, detached from the complexity of language, the imagination inside us has created various things. It seems that what is borne from imagination stems from the inexplicable as it emerges from the unconscious depths of the human mind.

Kohrogi studied oil painting as an undergraduate, and followed this with graduate studies in printmaking. Since then, he has been moving his home and studio to different locations, including Kumamoto, Tokyo, Osaka, London, Berlin, the Basque Country in Spain, and Bulgaria, while also holding regular solo exhibitions.

For his paintings, he has expanded his focus from frontal to peripheral aspects, developing his method of painting colors on each of the four sides of the canvas so it reflects on the white walls, giving the effect of a physical extension from the front. As such, he applied the theory of painting, step by step, to expand his art beyond the framework of the canvas. In his solo exhibition, “Turbidity”, held in 2022 at Yoshimi Arts, Kohrogi applied the same methodology to reveal a similar effect to that of paintings in the entire gallery space.

Also, in the “KYOTO STEAM 2022 International Art Competition” (Higashiyama Cube, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art), held from January to February 2022 in Kyoto, he presented a work that changes over time. Using the measurement technology of Horiba Ltd. to conduct a componential analysis, numeric data and images were extracted and projected onto artworks, drawn with either polarized, gloss-finished paints or matte-finished paints. Through collaborations with various companies, Kohrogi is attempting to further expand his paintings.

In this exhibition, we will present the artist’s new oil paintings, with themes of “fragrance” and “sense of smell”, and centering around his new works. This includes works created for the concept imagery of perfume bottle labels as part of a collaborative project with MAISON LEXIA Inc., as well as glass bottles Kohrogi created by himself to introduce his new endeavor. These works will invite you to engage with the exhibition, appealing to your visual and olfactory perception.