Ushio Shinohara

Maltese Falcon 

January 11, 2020 through February 29, 2020

Public Opening Reception: Saturday, January 11th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm 

Deborah Colton Gallery is pleased to present Ushio Shinohara: Maltese Falcon. The exhibition features the newest works by the internationally acclaimed Japanese artist, Ushio Shinohara, whose performative paintings are created with boxing gloves he uses like paintbrushes. His flashy, multicolored three-dimensional sculptures are also included in the exhibition, which nearly vibrates with the energy of the works that comprise the show. There is a public opening reception on Saturday, January 11th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. 

Born in Tokyo in 1932, Ushio Shinohara (nicknamed "Gyu-chan") is a Japanese Neo-Dadaist artist andInternational Pop painter who has lived and worked in the United States since 1969. His parents, a tanka poet and Japanese painter, instilled in him a love for artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. Most recently known for his exuberant boxing paintings, which are artifacts of his performances, Ushio Shinohara works in several mediums, including painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture. His work was first featured at Deborah Colton Gallery in the grand exhibition Love is a Roar-r-r!, alongside works of his wife, artist Noriko Shinohara, whose series Cutie and the Bullie tells the story of their tumultuous relationship. Both were featured in the Oscar and Academy Award nominated documentary, Cutie and the Boxer, which depicts their more than 40-year relationship as a couple and as artists. In 2016 Deborah Colton Gallery also hosted the exhibition ACTION! Boxing Paintings and Sculptures, which then attained his boxing performance on national television with Mountain Dew, along with more successful exhibits worldwide. 

Ushio's bright and frequently oversized work has exhibited at prestigious institutions internationally, including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Centre Georges Pompidou; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Japan Society, New York; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pusan; and soon at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Tate Modern, among others. His work is currently included in International Pop, a landmark exhibition at the Walker Art Center that chronicles the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the early 1970. A recent New York Times article on the exhibition mentions Shinohara: "Ushio Shinohara... engaged in a practice that might have been called punk if the concept had existed then..." 

Deborah Colton Gallery is founded on being an innovative showcase for ongoing presentation and promotion of strong historical and visionary contemporary artists worldwide, whose diverse practices include painting, works on paper, sculpture, video, photography, performance, conceptual future media and public space installations. The gallery aspires to provide a forum through connecting Texas, national and international artists to make positive change.