PARIS.- MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is presenting the work of Japanese artist Tomoo Gokita.

Recently exhibited in the ICA Milano’s show Gumbo, these works exemplify Gokita’s improvisational approach to painting—an intuitive process where chance plays a fundamental role. His practice, which teeters between figuration and abstraction, embodies a symbiotic amalgamation of influences, bringing together elements of vintage imagery and pop-culture to create a complex pictorial universe.

Gokita was first appraised for his monochrome, black-and-white gouaches, which evoke a sense of nostalgia and ephemerality, akin to faded photographs that paradoxically feel both foreign and familiar. However, in early 2020, he re-infused his oeuvre with color, expanding his visual vocabulary while maintaining the same dreamlike, enigmatic atmosphere that defines his oeuvre. According to the artist, his painting process revolves around “various unexpected accidents” - moments of serendipity that allow him to “perceive some confusion and wonder”, which are both apparent in his work.

A key element of Gokita’s practice is his reinterpretation of images characteristic of American 1960s and 70s subcultures - Playboy pin-ups, comic books, wrestling magazines, record cover sleeves, vintage periodicals, and film stills. These sources form a ghostly archive of familiar archetypes, figures pulled from the collective unconscious and distorted beyond recognition.

The philosophy of this artistic approach echoes Gokita’s fascination with Mexican Lucha Libre, which he identifies as a plane “where the real and the fake intersect”, thus creating a tension between reality and performance. The deformation of the face, a recurring motif in his work, can similarly be traced back to his love for the masked wrestlers – a practice that speaks to the desire for transformation, the desire for creation of new meanings through the destruction of old ones. In this way, Gokita’s paintings are both a process of subtraction (removing recognizable features) and exaggeration. Even as his subjects’ faces dissolve into abstraction, they retain a striking emotional expressiveness, as if caught in a moment of existential flux.

Gokita's fascination with female performers is another defining theme of his work, and Gokita himself explains that “the female form has allowed (him) to cultivate (his) surrealist aesthetic, whether partially obscured or completely abstract.” The influence likely stems from the artist’s childhood, as his father was involved in the design of the Japanese edition of Playboy magazine, and Gokita would frequently look through the pornographic images, absorbing the aesthetics of seduction and performance. This source of inspiration frequently shines through his paintings, such as ‘Spy’ (2024), which confronts the viewer with an uneasy sexual tension.

Another particularly intriguing subject in Gokita’ work is the family scene, exemplified by ‘The Dead Family’ (2024), which renders the stereotypical nuclear family unfamiliar through fragmentation. By shifting away from the expected triviality of such imagery, the artist creates a sense of unease and anxiety, disrupting the comfortable assumptions of domestic life. This tension—between the banal and the unknowable lies at the heart of Gokita’s practice, making his work an ever-evolving exploration of identity, transformation, and the surreal potential of the everyday.

Tomoo Gokita

Now a leading Japanese contemporary artist on the international art scene, Gokita started as a designer in the 90s, producing a series of newsprint books, some of which gained cult status, such as Lingerie Wrestling (2000). In 2000, he set aside graphic design and dedicated himself entirely to painting. His work is inspired by 1960s and 70s Japanese and American subcultures as well as vintage magazines, film stills, pornography, and postcards.

Combining abstract and expressive brushwork, deformed figures, and lowbrow imagery, Gokita’s works are emotionally charged canvases. Although he is widely known for working in greyscale, color has been a recurring feature of his practice since the beginning of his career.

Whether working in greyscale or color, Gokita’s paintings have long been characterized by their psychologically charged subject matter. The subjects of his paintings are indeed uncanny portraits, disquieting still lifes, and dream-like abstractions.

He has had solo exhibitions at galleries and museums including ICA Milan, Italy (2024), Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, USA (2021); Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, J (2018); Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, J (2017; 2012); Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY, US (2016; 2014); Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, US (2015); Kawamura Memorial, Chiba, J (2014); Aliceday Gallery, Brussels, BE (2010); ATM Gallery, New York, NY, US (2006).

His group shows include: The Five story about ART – have always been there, Okazaki Mindscape Museum, Aichi, J (2022); MCMXXXIV, Massimo De Carlo, Milano, I (2019); Taguchi Collection of 21st Century Art: From Andy Warhol to Yoshitomo Nara, Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, J (2018); Third Space/Shifting Conversations about Contemporary Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL, US (2017); Shared Space, Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans, FL, US (2015); Wonderful my Art, Kawaguchiko Museum of Art, Yamanashi, J (2013); The Unseen Relationship: Form and Abstraction, Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Chiba, J (2012); VOCA 2009: The Vision of Contemporary Art, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, J (2009).

Tomoo Gokita was born in 1969 in Tokyo, Japan, where he currently lives and works.