Like his fellow Japanese artists Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami, Izumi Kato traffics in an anime-inspired figurative style both fantastical and otherworldly. His paintings and sculptures depict bug-eyed, bat-winged creatures that are part extraterrestrial, part African totem. The results aren’t as cutesy as Nara’s work nor as overblown as Murakami’s.
Born in 1969, Kato didn’t start making art until he was nearly 30. Before that, he’d done manual labor, and while he eventually received formal art training, his background may account for the outsiderish quality of his work as well as his emphasis on materials. Instead of a brush, Kato hand-rubs layers of color onto canvas, creating tactile surfaces that give off a liminal glow. His sculptures
of carved, painted wood are sometimes sheathed in clear, malleable vinyl, like ritual objects stuffed into spacesuits.
Kato’s mix of the weird and the tangible carries distant echoes of Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Constantin Brâncusi, but what he brings to the table is pure 21st century. This show is the artist’s first in New York and very unlikely to be his last.