Behind the playful and surreal façade of Atsushi Kaga’s misleadingly simple and faux-crude works lurks much darker territory, wherein the artist confronts serious issues of cultural politics, paranoia, the complex search for personal identity and the daily philosophical crises of facing the harsh realities of the world. Through the eyes of a self-proclaimed ‘Otaku’, and influenced by the Japanese story-telling cultures of Manga and Anime, Atsushi Kaga’s razor-sharp wit and extraordinary imagination takes the viewer, willingly led, on a journey of exploration through a complex and often brutal, but hilarious, alternate universe.
Astushi Kaga, originally from Tokyo, studied Fine Art at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, graduating in 2005, and made a critically acclaimed first solo museum exhibition at the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny in 2008. He staged his fourth solo exhibition at mother’s tankstation limited, Dublin, in 2020, following his presentation with mother’s tankstation at Taipei Dangdai, Taipei (2020). Kaga’s work has also been exhibited at Jack Hanley Gallery, NY; Blain|Southern, London; Kantor Gallery, L.A.; Galerie Nicolas Krupp, Basel; and Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin. He participated in the Location One International Residency Programme, New York (2012), the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York (2011) and has also held residencies in Sao Paolo, the Fountainhead, Miami and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.