On Saturday, April 13, 2013, Corey Helford Gallery presents the “Japanese Ideology of Puberty,” featuring the light and shadow paintings of Japanese artist Kazuki Takamatsu, his first solo show with the gallery. Takamatsu’s paintings of contemporary awakenings are a catharsis of tonalities. “I use computer graphics-digital-and painting-analog-to make a work and it indicates the emotion of boys and girls metaphorically,” says Takamatsu of his painting method. Through the computer graphic technique of depth mapping, three-dimensional space is digitally visualized in a series of multiple depth plains. Takamatsu hand paints the emotions of his teenage subjects modeled on deep computer visual space. “Each graduation from surface to depth means the distance and there is no light and shadow. The color of black and white are metaphor for truth and evil, race and religion.” With acrylic black and white paints and gouaches, Takamatsu renders his girls with a method mediated on social fields of sexual identity, depth-fields mapping emotions engaging with a “systematic society.”

In the featured painting, “What is Important to Me Now?,” Takamatsu reveals a girl’s contemplation as a defense of being overwhelmed: “Weapons to protect something or to get rid of something. Information, life, politics, culture, religion, friends, nature, animal, plant or mind?” Youth becomes a field of awakenings, multiple perceptions of an adulterated world. “A pure emotion of Teenager who can’t get used to the society of adult has a mirror of inconsistency of society. I think there is a beauty in it,” he says. Takamatsu celebrates the adolescent’s vision as a purity blossoming through technology media, a venus fly-trap of tech culture and viral thinking.

“Japanese Ideology of Puberty” will exhibit twelve oil paintings painted in acrylic and gouache, focusing on the emotive depth of coming of age. Of his painting, “The Flu” depicting a virus complicating life and transmitted by people, he visualizes metamorphosis. “The information, society and people always keep changing,” says Takamatsu of his ephemeral figures’ world, a vibrant, noir mapping of the rites of youth, where growing-up is a surreal awakening, a beauty transcending technocracy.

The opening reception for “Japanese Ideology of Puberty” takes place Saturday, April 13 at Corey Helford Gallery. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through May 11, 2013.