Perrotin is pleased to present an exhibition by Japanese artist Izumi Kato, in New York.
October 28 – December 19, 2026
The artist's latest body of work, realized between 2025 and 2026, is comprised of an enigmatically powerful array of paintings and sculptures that collectively propel his exploration of form, color, and spatiality into new realms of consciousness. These two-and threedimensional constructions rendered across the mediums of oil on canvas, cast aluminum, plastic models, fabric, and wood, feature Kato’s signature hitogata, or humanoid figures, that appear at once primordial and futuristic.
This new series poetically illuminates the seamless fluidity between Kato’s painting and sculpture practices. Fundamentally a painter, the artist considers his sculptures as complex, three-dimensional paintings. He “paints” his sculptures just as he would a flat canvas, creating a deliberate separation between form and surface. Cumulatively, the works challenge the conventions of physical scale and the rectilinear compositional frame, offering modular, sometimes disparate, elements—evoking the surrealist parlor game cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse)—that highlight the shape shifting aspect of Kato’s mysterious figures.
Sculpturally, Kato continues to take inspiration from found stones he discovers in nature. In this body of work the stones are then transposed into cast aluminum using a similar process inspired by the artist’s plastic model series from 2022. The lightweight properties of aluminum, a new medium for the artist, has enabled the oversized sculptures to be suspended in space akin to Kato’s fabric sculpture series from 2018 at the Red Brick Museum. However, whereas the flat, sail-like fabric constructions were merely punctuated by small stone weights that tethered them to the earth, these voluminous cast and painted aluminum stone sculptures fill the space with a commanding presence. These suspended mobile-like figures are similarly constructed in segments like the paintings, alternately evoking giant fishing lures and shamanistic totems.
The wooden sculptures mounted on stands are also influenced by Kato’s recent plastic model series. The prone painted figures are displayed trophy-like atop two stainless steel posts. The primary figure’s shape is evocative of Kato’s Untitled sphinx-inspired paintings which were on view at Perrotin New York in 2021. What sets these works apart is the addition of readymade lures, a motif that extends from the plastic model series, in which the artist affixed readymade plastic models onto his wooden figures to create surreal tableaux. In these newest works, the found lures resemble remora or tile fish that are known to attach themselves to sharks and other apex predators.