Ataru Sato not only understands himself, humanity, and the world around him through the act of drawing and painting, but also communicates through it as well. He uses fine, perhaps excessively fine, linework and brushstrokes as a tool for expressing various themes such as obsession, fear, and romance. Fact and fiction, real life and fantasy – all well forth, intertwined, through diverse media, including paintings, drawings, installations, and painted boxes.
In producing his works, Sato has not focused on creating art for art’s sake, or for novelty or meaning. He has faced head-on and depicted things that most of us turn away from and leave bottled up deep inside, to be ignored in blissful ignorance. In this exhibition, the artist faces deeper aspects of himself than ever before. Sato provided the following statement about the exhibition.
There’s someone I wanted to forget.
I sought help from doctors, lovers, and friends.
But ten years passed, and I still wasn’t able to forget. I came to realize that I couldn’t forget.
I’ve created a ritual that I call “111.”
I was feeling all but hopeless on the night of January 1, 2021, as I took a walk around the Imperial Palace while listening to music on my headphones. Since falling in love is beyond your control, if your feelings are left unrequited, you have no other option but to suffer.
Knowing there are as many love songs in the world as there are stars in the sky, I told myself that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. But I still hurt. If I could have removed my heart from my chest, I would have been able to take it out and act as if nothing had happened. But the hope smoldering in the pus that had built up deep within my heart didn’t allow me to be set free.
My iPod was playing Beethoven’s ‘Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111.’
I wanted to kill the Beethoven playing inside of me. I wanted to kill that memory of you laying on my bed.
I wanted to replace the focus of romances depicted in my past works with someone new.
I named this ritual, in which I found memories of the past and completely rewrote them, leaving no trace of the original behind, “triple one.”
I’m glad that I was able to work on art when life got tough.
Once I complete this ritual, it will be as if we never even met.
We never have.
The works produced through Sato’s “ritual” are striking and honest, conveying both darkness and pain. However, the memories with which his art has been imbued through this ritual, now immortalized and clothed in beauty, speak to the viewer deep within.
Please join us for this exhibition, as we present 31 new paintings by Ataru Sato.

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