Self Portraits - Aki Kuroda

A strange, almost monstrous face stands out against a vividly colored background cluttered with curved lines and sketches: this is what Aki Kuroda's portraits look like, works that are as mysterious as the artist who painted them. Through this series of self-portraits, Kuroda opens a breach in his canvases, inviting the viewer to leave the real world behind and enter a completely personal one. The artist moves away from his interest in physics and astronomy to invent a metaphysics of his own, re-exploring the same motifs that recur inexorably in his work. The broad brushstrokes that form the central figure recall the swirls of dark lines that characterize his early work, contrasting with the flat areas of pure primary color that bring us back to the primitive, fundamental act of painting that has carried him since childhood.

In the hypnotizing face at the center of the canvas, we seem to catch another glimpse of the Minotaur, embodied in Aki Kuroda's features. He often paints himself crowned with two horns, symbolizing both the contradictory movements of our society, which tends towards modernity while aspiring to past or timeless myths, and the constant gush of his thoughts. Rabbits, geometrical figures, flowers, shadows and intertwined lines are all part of the outpouring of ideas that emerge from his head, evoking the chaos of Cosmocity, or the Ariadne's thread that he seems to follow throughout his work.