INTO ULTRABLACK assembles six works by artist Kosuke Kawahara, which all speak to notions of growth; decay; modes of communication and perception; spiritualism; interdependent relationships; and human behavior in ever- shifting environmental conditions.

Across Kosuke Kawahara’s works, one repeatedly encounters underlying structures: veins, root systems, bones, connective tissue, cavernous networks, and other interstitial environments. These corporeal elements are enhanced by the artist’s frequent use of materials from living matter: coffee grounds, rabbit skin glue, cotton, wood, beeswax, and various types of paper. His painting process follows an organic, intuitive approach, meaning that his manipulation of materials is guided by impulse, allowing chance and entropy a fertile foothold within the manifold realms he creates. Like Dieter Roth (1930–1998) and other artists in the twentieth century who intentionally worked with destabilizing or decaying substances, Kawahara allows his paintings to chip, flake, and deteriorate–thereby fusing the cryptic, bodily imagery that populate his canvases with the object’s layered materiality.

Kawahara is interested in ethological theories around Umwelt (from the German Umwelt meaning "environment" or "surroundings"; each species lives in its own unique sensory world, to which other species may be partially or totally blind [Sebeok 145]*). He is invested in representing the exchange and communication occurring between organisms at a microscopic level–calling attention to how we experience the same reality, but perceive or process it differently. As such, his actively changing tableaux can be seen as materializing some of these ideas. This level of exchange, symbiosis, and transformation can be seen in works like Burial in the Sub- Space (2013–2017), whose title hints at the artist’s abiding fascination with in-between spaces. The subject matter of Burial in the Sub-Space deals with regeneration, the cycling of life, animism, and loosely relates to the Japanese Buddhist tradition of Kotsu-Nobose (placing of the bones), a custom where people scaled mountain sides in order to deposit the hair and nails of the deceased in shrines. The mountaintop emerges here as a significant site for the artist, uniting autobiographical accounts where he was hiking in Japan and visiting temples. During these excursions, Kawahara encountered strong, imposing atmospheres that prompted him to think about vision, perception, and environmental conditions. In the middle of this composition, a haunting form with extended limbs is surrounded by harsh, mountainous environs. In the foreground, spectators can clearly make out vertical scratches, which the painter rendered with scrapers and chisels. Rough-hewn accents of gold are scattered across this black mound, including a faint Japanese character that doesn’t hold any meaning. The gold color actually comes from aging linseed oil not gold leaf itself, one more example of how the artist allows his materials to decay in order to speak to life cycles, decomposition, and the stability of life and images.

In Take You Away (2018–2022), the largest work in the exhibition, Kawahara has built up a dense, allusory image based on a collection of daily photographs he took while walking the streets of Manhattan. In the top half of the chaotic composition, an ominous hand reaches down from above (lending itself to the artwork’s title) and appears to bridge parallel universes. The work also comments upon recent catastrophes involving man-made errors and nuclear energy, pointing to the fragility and instability of life. In a key section, one can clearly make out a phantom-like bottle form. On one hand, the form resembles the vessels containing linseed oil that the artist relies heavily upon to create his work–and reminds us of its discoloring, distorting tendencies. On the other hand, its geometric shape recalls the containment buildings at nuclear power plants. Overall, the canvas is filled with unsettling vignettes, such as the two-headed penis in the upper left. This mutant imagery correlates to the radioactive color scheme of pinks and greens, and both strongly resemble varying species of fungi. The reference to slime mold and mushrooms ties back to the painter’s meditations on the multifaceted concept of Umwelt and different organisms’ modes of sensing, communication, adaptation, and reproduction.

In Osedax [Bone Eater] (2018–2021), Kawahara has constructed a rather unstable image with slightly discernible crystalline structures as well as threads arranged like bacteria. In its assembly, rabbit skin glue has been used twice: first as a layer on the fabric to size or seal it, and then as a layer directly on top of the oil paint. The second application of the refined collagen slowly peels and cracks the facture of the painting, effectively subverting the primary purpose of the historic product. In traditional oil painting during the Renaissance, rabbit skin glue was used in the preparation of gesso for canvases and wooden panels. Accordingly, it was a critical ingredient in preparing the support to receive oil paints that would in turn be layered and blended to represent holy personages and narratives for private devotion and public worship. Rather than stabilize or preserve a religious vision or narrative, Kawahara’s works are precarious pictures, suggesting perhaps that all stories–and their corresponding visual representations–are not immutable tales, but rather unfastened constructs that humans maintain at great lengths in order to give the illusion of truth, stability, and permanence. This notion of deterioration is reinforced through the title, which is an explicit reference to tiny deep-sea organisms that decompose the skeletal structures of other creatures.

Parallel to these readings of Kawahara’s works, the paintings in the show are from his ten-year investigation into darkness and the metaphorical significance of light and dark across cultures. Through imagery that evokes caves and grottoes on one hand and Japanese lacquerware on another, the artist plumbs the depths of the cultural conditioning surrounding darkness, the void, and the unknown.

Many works take Kawahara several years to complete, reflecting his working method and purpose. The whole process of creating a work from the start to its end is a process of the artist constantly exploring and (re)constructing the alternative space around darkness. Kawahara hopes to push viewers to realize that darkness spurs curiosity and stimulates the imagination while keeping his paintings utterly open to interpretation.