Masato Mori

Mori was born in the Tokushima Prefecture in 1976, where he continues to reside and base his artistic practice. In recent years he has increasingly expanded the scope of his activities internationally, such as presenting a solo exhibition of his work at the Nova section of Art Basel Miami Beach (2019) and taking part in the group exhibition “Tokyo Pop Underground” (2019/2020) at Jeffrey Deitch. While Mori’s paintings are characterized by their vivid colors and complex texture, they simultaneously present a somewhat comical and light impression. In the process leading to this style, Mori repeated analyzed the various influential relationships that serve as the root of his creative activities, in particular seeking out points of correspondence between his own aesthetic perspective and that of comics, video games, and animation. Furthermore, in Mori’s recent works it is also possible to discover a certain affinity with artists likes Jean Du Buffet, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, and Wassily Kandinsky who had studied children’s paintings and art produced by those with disabilities. Here viewers are able to capture glimpses of the clues that lead to unraveling Mori’s artistic practice, such as innocence and purity that in essence are considered as fundamental themes within art. For Mori, who had learned the joys of drawing through copying popular comic book characters as with any young child skilled in drawing, the manifestation of such correlations within his work had perhaps been a natural course of progression.