Scape by Kouichi Tabata

Kouichi Tabata’s first UK solo show explores drawing beyond line- and mark-making, tending towards the painterly. His paintings of still-life subjects are sequenced into animations as a kind of ‘still footage’, leading to an exploration of the dimensions between different layers of meaning in which these opposing forces operate. Looped paintings relinquish tranquil scenery, instead enveloping the audience into a restless, endless cycle.

His monochromatic drawings in 72 colour (Birds) present a constant renegotiation of this condition. Rendering the subject through a spectrum of coloured graphite, each frame takes on its own textural quality. Black is the reference point – other colours require details to be added or subtracted. The act of repeated drawing represents an ongoing enquiry between observation and materials. Sequencing into film reveals the nuanced variations of the process – a narrative of connected spaces between the physical phenomena and their representation on paper.

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