Masaya Chiba’s witty figurative paintings blur the lines between sculpture, landscape, still life and portraiture. His work typically begins life in his studio as an assemblage of both readymade and handmade objects, which are then faithfully reproduced on canvas using a finely developed painterly technique. Chiba complicates this transposition between sculpture and painting with visual jokes, while toying with the sizes and shapes of his canvases or their modes of presentation, often contriving the paintings into installations that gleefully disregard conventions of display.

Strong in absurdist sensibility, Chiba’s works also exhibit a commitment to the interpretative and sensory possibilities of painting, suspended between convention and innovation.

This project is assisted by the Ishibashi Foundation and the National Center for Art Research, Japan.