Naoyuki Okada

Since moving to New York in 1992, Japanese painter Naoyuki Okada has channeled the influences of his native culture and the art history he explored during years in Europe into an aesthetic of changing continuity. His acrylic and watercolor compositions, most often executed on sprawling rice paper, balance a gentle sense of light and color with broad lines and movements. The dynamism of each work is unmistakably strong, but this cosmic force is tempered by the delicacy of Okada’s details.

The impression of fluid action in his paintings places great emphasis on the subtleties of Okada’s smallest details. As if peering into a river whose every drop fascinates, the viewer is swept up in the strength of direction and flow, but also drawn to the quiet, fleeting glimmers of light and color. Finally, Okada offers the awareness that even the most permanent forces and presences in life have a fleeting energy and will one day disappear. In this sense, he offers a new way of seeing.