Daisuke Fukunaga

Daisuke Fukunaga was born in Tokyo in 1981, graduated from Tama Art University in 2004 with a major in oil painting, and received the first Koji Kinutani Award in 2009. Currently based in Tokyo, Fukunaga has been active both in Japan and overseas, holding many solo exhibitions  in recent years.

Since the early days of his career, Fukunaga has been fascinated by back alleys and backyards, seeing a unique kind of presence in objects that tend to be overlooked, such as mops, tires, and motorcycle seats. He paints as if to document his own sensations when these objects come alive to him. His works depict how objects standing quietly in the background come to appear dignified and sublime, as if they had feelings of their own.

At his solo exhibition at Tomio Koyama Gallery in 2020, Fukunaga presented a work depicting people at work taking a break. It was highly acclaimed for the contrast between the social appearance and demeanor of these workers and the way their personalities started to emerge as they relaxed during their break. These aesthetic, graceful, and melancholy expressions and poses are suffused with a strange sense of euphoria and darkness.
The unique fluctuations on the pictorial surface, the pale and vivid colors of blue, green, purple, pink, and orange, and the background that is suggestive of no single country in particular all imbue the picture plane with a fictional quality, and develop a worldview that is dense and original.