階 段
Masaya Yoshioka: The Staircase
吉岡雅哉
Only paintings of a staircase are present.
Nothing else.
Masaya Yoshioka was renovating his studio.
He attached risers to a staircase he had built himself.
At that moment, he sensed a certain allure in the staircase.
He began to paint it.
Once he started, he could not stop.
In two months, he produced over 200 works.
It is the same staircase.
Yet no two paintings are the same.
Angle, distance, light, humidity.
Subtle differences keep calling forth the next image.
A staircase is a simple structure, but the more it is painted, the less simple it becomes.
Anything extraneous is gradually stripped away.
Still, he continues to paint.
In this exhibition, these works are gathered into a single space.
Not aligned, not arranged—the walls are gradually overtaken by staircases.
Only paintings of a staircase are present.
Nothing else.
Masaya Yoshioka
Born in 1981 in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. Raised in a family of temple carpenters, Yoshioka mastered traditional craft techniques and became independent, while also studying Western painting on his own from an early age. His work depicts rural landscapes where contemporaneity and folk sensibilities intersect, rendered through a range of painterly styles.
Awards: Tokyo Wonder Wall Prize (2008); Toyota Art Exhibition ’07 Jury Prize (2007); Shell Art Award, Jury Encouragement Prize (Mika Kuraya, 2006); Exchanging Seeds Vol.2 Advisor Prize (2006)
■ Exhibition History at Minnano Gallery
"Living with the staircase began after I renovated my studio in December."
"It’s simply a matter of affection—painting a favorite staircase, a favorite chair, a favorite desk—and letting that attachment become the motif of a painting. If you stay true to that attachment, motifs are scattered everywhere. Whether they become paintings or not, I think it’s important to at least try painting them."
"There is a temptation in painting the staircase—a lure to drown in both the fear and the pleasure of depicting it exactly as it is."
"If Gustave Courbet were alive today, I think he would have painted a staircase."
"The motif of a staircase may be unusual, but there are artists who paint only chairs, or even only self-portraits, over and over. It doesn’t have to be a staircase. What interests me are people who become possessed by a motif. The motif itself can be anything."
"It just happens that the motif I’m absorbed in right now is a staircase; my approach to painting hasn’t changed."
"If I’m going to paint a staircase, I have to love it completely.
It’s not just about staircases—but this one is so unresponsive that unless I love it with everything I have, it won’t even turn toward me."
"It’s almost a miracle to have a staircase I truly want to paint.
To encounter something I can pour my passion into."
"It’s strange—although a staircase is man-made, it somehow feels like something natural."
"The staircase is good. There’s no other way to put it."
© Minnano Gallery