“Scrape and build-up” has been, through his late Summer residency, a coinage and actual method Yusuke Wakata has employed as foil in developing his photographic bas-relief artwork. In his eyes, it parallels that of building cities where a mixture of human methods attached to myriad of mix-and-match material elements results in depersonalized hybrid buildings and disjointed environments. The end result—as the artist sees it—has culminated in existentially dreadful dwelling localities, where one is unable to enjoy and dream of a bright, utopian future. In order to redeem himself, Wakata expresses this feeling of chaos, confusion and nothingness in the process of artmaking.

 

Being an active artist in Tokyo, he has witnessed a constant and senseless destruction paired to an aesthetically atrocious, unregulated and unlimited growth. Images of Tokyo’s dystopia he now parallels to those he sees happening in New York City, a permeating experience inspiring and guiding his disciplined work.

 

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