IZUMI KATO: UNTITLED

PERROTIN is pleased to present Untitled, Izumi Kato’s second solo show at the gallery.

August 26 – October 25, 2025

Hailing from Japan’s Shimane Prefecture, artist Izumi Kato regularly depicts peculiar creatures that resemble humans. These lifeforms are characterized by heads that seem large in proportion to their bodies and eyes drawn with particular emphasis, as well as arms and legs that tend to taper off, ambiguous; our imagination, here, turns toward extraterrestrial beings, or perhaps spirits belonging to the natural world. Having studied oil painting at Musashino Art University, Kato initially expressed these forms as two-dimensional paintings, gradually expanding his practice into three dimensions over time by incorporating various materials like wood, stone, cloth, soft vinyl, and plastic models, as well as exploring different modes of expression like painting directly onto kimonos.

The distinctive lifeforms of Izumi Kato were not arrived at in one fell swoop; rather, they speak to a process of change that involved multiple stages. Just as an insect reaches its final form through a given process of metamorphosis, Kato’s forms evolve both consistently and sequentially, as if following a predetermined course—ultimately establishing, as a result, a singular formative language entirely his own.

While Kato works not just in painting, sculpture, and installation but crosses freely into and out of disparate fields like fashion and handicraft, painting does remain at the heart of his art—perhaps because he majored in it as an undergraduate. In other words, the artist’s approach begins by first realizing an idea or concept through painting, and then gradually expanding the result into the realm of sculpture or installation involving an array of different materials.