Opening Reception: "Cutie & The Boxer In Dallas"

Kirk Hopper Fine Art is excited to announce "Cutie and the Boxer in Dallas" an exhibition by artists Noriko and Ushio Shinohara. The Shinoharas are most recently known from the Academy Award nominated documentary "Cutie and the Boxer". This documentary explores the history of the couple’s often tumultuous marriage and their lives as artists. The exhibition will open on March 7th and will run through April 11th. Born in Tokyo in 1932, Ushio Shinohara (nicknamed“Gyu-chan”), is a Japanese Neo-Dadaist artist who has lived and worked in the United States since 1969. His parents, a tanka poet and Japanese painter, instilled in him a love for artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, who have inspired his work. Known for his boxing paintings, which are the artifacts of his performances, Ushio works in several mediums including painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture. His bright and frequently oversized work has exhibited at prestigious institutions internationally, including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Centre Georges Pompidou; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Japan Society, New York; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Leo Castelli Gallery; The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seoul; and soon to be The Dallas Museum of Art; and the Tate Modern, among others. Noriko Shinohara was born in 1952 in Takaoka City, Japan , moved to New York in 1972 to study art, and soon met Ushio in 1973. She has worked as an artist for many years, but the work she is best known for is her Cutie and Bullie Series that began in 2006. This series includes drawings, paintings, and prints that feature her characters Cutie and Bullie and are based on herself and Ushio. All of the Cutie and Bullie works are truthful to the point of discomfort and follow Cutie’s early trials of being married to an alcoholic older man and the difficulty of being an artist in New York. The scenes inspired by recent events show Cutie’s triumphs as her work and worth are finally being realized, by both herself and the outside world. Noriko’s work has been exhibited frequently in New York and Japan, and is part of the permanent collection of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College.