Tetsuya Ishida

Tetsuya Ishida’s paintings portray the challenges of modern society in Japan—with technology and the economy expanding at a rapid rate, its citizens are subject to extreme “physical and mental traffic.” His dreamlike works depict youthful subjects that are often lost, intermingled in machinery, or cowering from unknown predators. They are isolated and reflect the artist’s sentiment toward living in Japan, stifled by “pressure of academic and office life, social dislocation, the dulling effects of mechanization and the search for identity.” Layered brushstrokes and highly saturated color render these surreal depictions with high-voltage. Skeptical of excess culture, he uses dark humor to widen the conversation about feelings of inadequacy and insecurity in contemporary life.

Ishida has had exhibitions at institutions including the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, Sumpu Museum, Shizuoka, Japan, CB Collection, Tokyo, Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo, Christie’s, London, Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul, Sakura City Museum of Art, Chiba, Japan, and Hamamatsu Municipal Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan, among others. He was featured in the Venice Biennale in 2015, the Gwangju Biennale in 2014, and the Yokohama Triennial in 2011.