Please join us at SHAG as we present new paintings and works on paper by

Hiroki Otsuka

Cup Noodle
Jan 15 - March 28

OPENING RECEPTION
this Friday, Jan 15, 6:30 - 9:30 pm

www.hirokiotsuka.com

Bio

Hiroki Otsuka:  From Manga to Ero-Pop

Japanese artist Hiroki Otsuka is undergoing an exciting shift in his

career, and looking at his recent output, he is doing so with great

ease and acumen.  A comic book illustrator for the past thirteen years

with a strong penchant for the erotic storylines of pornographic manga

aimed at straight Japanese men, Otsuka has shifted gears and is now

producing deeply disturbing paintings based on the unstable nature of

sexuality in contemporary Japan.  In these mostly monochrome works,

Otsuka renders sexually charged teenage girls in a variety of helpless

poses, hermaphroditic baby doll monsters and nymphs, strong

squared-off katakana characters painted directly onto the gallery wall

blasting forth onomatopoeiac sex sounds, and a litany of anxious men

in various stages of sexual release.  The works are made with the

traditional Japanese sumi ink used in calligraphy, and their jet black

figures stand out against white ground as if to say, "Look at me.

Know me.  Help me.  Now turn away."  It is indeed with a certain

amount of embarrassment and discomfort that these works delve into our

own experiences of the carnal; whether straight, gay, trans-gendered

or otherwise, these works speak to the diversity of sexuality just as

much as they portray unspeakable acts or hidden fantasies.

Otsuka honed his crafts over a decade of drafting and inking comic

book cells for a variety of publications he authored under the pen

name Pirontan, and began illustrating for a number of major Japanese

publications in 2004, including the gay-themed magazine Badi and the

straight-leaning manga series Erotics, Rabumani and Hi-5.   While

working on these projects, he began to think about the possibility of

shifting his focus from the graphic to the fine arts, and with the

same set of hentai (pervert) tendencies with which he creates his

comics, he set about a series of paintings that seemingly exposes the

dark corners of human sexuality.

Written by Eric C. Shiner