KENJI FUJITA | Cut and Cover | August 28 – October 15, 2022

Kenji Fujita works in series using commonplace geometries of shape, line and form. With Excavation (2018-19) Fujita makes small sculptures out of odd pieces of old work retrieved from the studio floor that are cut, crushed, stuffed, turned around, smoothed over, painted and repainted. Amalgams of new work are layered over old work. For Cut and Cover (2019-20) Fujita takes old panel pieces, cuts them roughly into thirds and turns them around facing the wall. These newly painted “backs” function like shallow stages for the flat, painted plywood shapes that are arranged in ways that feel both improvised and planned. For Set/Reset (2021) Fujita takes scraps of sculptural leftovers, small abstract plywood shapes hand cut with a jig saw, and places them, like templates, onto the canvas, which are then outlined in pencil and brushed in with paint. Flat, opaque, textured and transparent, these painted shapes form arrangements that move the eye to see patterns that come together and then break apart: set/reset. Fujita was born into a family of artists that was inspired by mid-century American abstraction and Japanese aesthetics. His art plays freely with these influences, recreating and destroying inherited forms in order to produce new improvisations.