Samの英語チャンネル

Beautiful paintings of glitchy NES screens will star in Tokyo art gallery through December.

There’s a great quote from musician Brian Eno about how progress in any artistic field creates a longing for what came before:

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit — all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart.

It’s true. Think about how people like retro apps that turn their high-definition selfies into a mess of janky pixels, or how many people rushed for the chance to use the tiny, limited Nintendo Entertainment System controllers with their souped-up new Switch consoles.

And now Shun Okada, an artist from Tokyo, has taken his appreciation for Nintendo’s past glitches to a whole other level. On his canvases, streams of glitched-out fonts jag into unpleasant peaks, rock textures sprawl in ugly clumps across the sky, and name select screens tessellate over themselves until the features are lost in a pixellated froth.

▼ Just a reminder that this is a painting, not a screenshot.
(Click side arrows to see more.)

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“????????�?�????????�” (up) “????????��” (down) 380×450 (mm)(each) oil and acrylic on canvas mounted on panel 2019.9

A post shared by Shun Okada (@oka_un) on Sep 23, 2019 at 10:05pm PDT

▼ And this one is embroidery!

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2019.8 P15 embroidery sewn with a cross-stitch

A post shared by Shun Okada (@oka_un) on Aug 12, 2019 at 11:32pm PDT

While Okada has had work featured in galleries, from December 6 he will hold his first solo exhibition, titled Retrojective.

https://t.co/g9xCcnYkJ9

—
おかだ (@Oka_un) November 26, 2019

The exhibition will be held in Tokyo’s TAV Gallery, a museum that places a spotlight on unusual and alternative art. Positing Okada as the “player” and his pieces as the “actions” he takes in a hypothetical game, visitors can enjoy his mixed media pieces while guessing what game he had to mangle to achieve the source screen.

▼ Can you figure out what game this comes from?

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revision past work �㎭���失���妵�㎭���失���妵 2019.11 652×530mm oil oncancas

A post shared by Shun Okada (@oka_un) on Nov 28, 2019 at 5:22am PST

▼ That looks suspiciously like the Namco logo…

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2019.11 F20 oil on canvas

A post shared by Shun Okada (@oka_un) on Nov 13, 2019 at 10:35pm PST

Okada will tweet alongside his exhibition to shed light on the various works, and help guests to identify the assets and games that inspired them. Glitches are a simple fact of technology, and Okada’s method of elevating them in oil paint, glass and embroidery is definitely worth a lLlLlllloỏ̵͙̙͖̮̋͝͝o̷̰͙͂̽͛͘ỏ̵͙̙͖̮̋͝͝o̷̰͙͂̽͛͘ỏ̵͙̙͖̮̋͝͝k̶̞̻̙̑͆̐͒̓̏̉̈́̎͘̕k̶̞̻̙̑͆̐͒̓̏̉̈́̎͘̕k̶̞̻̙̑͆̐͒̓̏̉̈́̎͘̕k̶̞̻̙̑͆̐͒̓̏̉̈́̎͘̕k̶̞̻̙̑͆̐͒̓̏̉̈́̎͘̕kkkKk.

Exhibit Information
Shun Okada Solo Exhibit “RETROJECTIVE” / 岡田舜 個展「RETROJECTIVE」
Address: Tokyo-to, Suginami-ku, Asagaya Kita 1-31-2
東京都杉並区阿佐谷北1-31-2
Open: December 6, 2019 to December 22, 2019
1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (Closed Wednesday and Thursday)
Phone: 03-3330-6881

Source: DenFamiNico Gamer via My Game News Flash
Featured image: Instagram/oka_un
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Source: SORA NEWS24