Saga Atsushi (b. 1970) | inside (017); inside (018) | 2016

SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo

Faintly perceptible genjiko patterns are visible on the enamel-like surfaces of Saga Atsushi’s series inside (2015-). The painted wood is extensively polished by hand, blurring the boundary between painting and mirror. Forgoing a preoccupation with form and decorative colour early on in his career, Saga’s practice comprises an acute desire for simplicity in material and execution of method. In his glossy, reflective surfaces, Saga achieves a complex depth and subtle variety through manual polishing and the offsetting, often by a few millimetres, of his ‘canvases’.

Saga was born in 1970, Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from the Tama Art University of Fine Art in 1996. Saga’s works are in public collections, including the Twenty-first Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan, and the Jean Pigozzi Collection of Japanese Contemporary Art.