Francis Halsall finds in Atsushi Kaga’s paintings an aesthetic influenced by Japanese culture, European art and everyday life
If Atsushi Kaga’s paintings are construed as cute, perhaps this is because of the white, anthropomorphic, rabbit-like figure with a companion cat that frequently appears in them. With a likeable but impassive face, rendered sparsely, it’s obviously appealing, yet belies a strangeness and sadness that remain somewhat inscrutable. There are hints that the inner life of this character is rich, complex, perhaps even conflicted. The cats, too, are not just adorable accompaniments, like the subjects of so many memes and other internet content, but animals with an unpredictable agency. It would be wrong, then, to think of Kaga’s exquisite paintings as merely nice, sweet or cute.
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