Hiroki Tsukuda

Hiroki Tsukuda was born in Kagawa in 1978, and since graduating from the Department of Imaging Arts & Sciences at Musashino Art University has continued to base his practice in Tokyo. In recent years he has received increasing international acclaim, with numerous solo exhibitions held such as “HOUR OF EXCAVATION” (Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany, 2017), “HIROKI TSUKUDA” (Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, Germany, 2017) and “Enter the O” (Petzel, New York, US, 2016). His large-scale work presented last year was added to the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Tsukuda’s two-dimensional works rendered entirely by hand are often conceived via a process of digital collage that combines a collection of his own drawings and snapshot photographs. In producing his work, Tsukuda initially manipulates various aspects such as the color, orientation, and resolution of each image that serve as his source material, thereby once destroying their existing context. Such means of production could be considered to have been derived from a contemporary interpretation of “the ability to witness illusion,” as advocated by artist André Breton whom Tsukuda cites as an inspiration for his practice. Nevertheless, it by no means intends for any manner of visual trickery. Since early childhood Tsukuda questioned his homogenous vision, and with a belief in pluralistic means of visual recognition, has continued to assume the existence of a realm he refers to as the “other world.” Cases in which the meaning of things change according to relative relationships, like monumental architectural structures that suddenly emerge amidst vast natural landscapes, and objects that appear different in form depending on the ways they are combined, are engraved within Tsukuda’s mind as significant sources of inspiration.