Tomoo Gokita - The Great Circus

Published in conjunction with an exhibition of Tomoo Gokita’s work at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, this handsome volume offers a glimpse into the surrealistic vision of the Tokyo-based artist. Although known for amorphous, grey-scale paintings that evoke iconic celebrity headshots but with the faces obscured, reflecting early pop cultural influences drawn from manga and erotic magazines, his more recent work is looser, more freely articulated, reflecting a tendency toward hyper-abstraction in which all traces of the human form are erased. Warm colours feature in expansive, conceptual canvases while moodily scribbled ink gestures darken other drawings. Thanks to Torch Press (Tokyo).