Masamitsu Shigeta presents a series of paintings dedicated to the urban plantlife of Los Angeles, and more specifically, relating these new paintings to music. For the past several years, Shigeta has devoted his practice to the city flora of New York City, but visiting California for the first time left a deep impression. Similar to how a field recorder collects sounds out in the world, Shigeta captured the distinctive silhouettes of palm tree-lined blocks, discordant garbage bins filled with cacti, and passion flowers blooming like radio waves. Shigeta’s paintings record the ambient noises and complex frequencies of his immediate surroundings, allowing them to be replayed in new locations.

Shigeta explains, “physicality is like volume. I want to make it loud or quiet, as performative as live music or as clear as the sound from a radio.” Color is like a cord in how it contributes to the overall impression of a painting. Gestures are the speed, tempo, and rhythm. Mark-making expresses how the energy moves throughout the composition. Akin to a refrain, Shigeta often repeats the shape or imagery across multiple works, exemplifying how a shift in scale and color palette affects the mood. ‘Blue Cactus’ and ‘Colorful Cactus’ share the same shape, and show a similarly bisected cactus, but the bold geometric lines in the jewel-toned former contrasts with the soft mottling in the larger scaled, sunset-colored version of the latter. 

Shigeta further plays with painting conventions by shifting the medium toward sculpture, either by shaping his canvas or utilizing framing devices, often consisting of materials found around the city or recycling discarded materials found in his studio. For example, ‘Palm Tree and Street’ is framed with rounded corners in silver bubble wrap, while ‘Red Tree’ is built of concentric rings of fiberglass and resin. Together these elements – building custom frames, recording the visual environment, and how that relates to sound and location – signal the multiplicity of Shigeta’s glance.

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Masamitsu Shigeta (b. 1992, Tokyo, Japan) lives and works in Hoboken, NJ. He holds an MFA from New York University and a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Shigeta’s inaugural exhibition with SITUATIONS was held in Spring 2021 and was reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail. Most recently, he held a solo exhibition at Tyler Park Presents, LA. He has been in group exhibitions at The Landing, LA, Chinatown Soup Gallery, NY and Tutu Gallery, NY.