LAS VEGAS, NV.- The Las Vegas Art Museum is pleased to present the exhibition Kaz Oshiro: Paintings and Works on Paper, 1999-2006, April 14-July 8, 2007. The exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of works by Los Angeles-based, Japanese artist Kaz Oshiro, and the artist’s Las Vegas debut. It features 35 paintings in acrylic on shaped canvas, and 6 works on paper.

When first encountered, Oshiro’s distinctive, three-dimensional paintings appear to be sculptural replicas of conspicuously banal, mass-produced objects. Working in series, Oshiro has produced various brand-name electronic amplifiers, stereo speakers, car bumpers, kitchen cabinets, fast-food trash receptacles, washers and dryers, mini refrigerators, microwave ovens, and, most recently, Toyota truck tailgates. Most of the objects show signs of use and wear in the form of faux scuffs and stains, or bumper stickers and other types of popular graphic appliqués that appear to be stuck on the surfaces of the objects, but in fact have been painstakingly emulated in paint by Oshiro. Three-dimensional elements attached to the paintings, such as knobs and handles, are sculpted in Bondo and painted by the artist to appear to be real pieces of hardware. All the paintings are startlingly convincing in their trompe l’oeil effects, despite the fact that Oshiro paints only the fronts and sides of the objects, and intentionally displays his paintings such that the backsides reveal the works’ construction of ordinary stretcher bars and canvas.

Oshiro’s works manifest deep ties to late twentieth-century styles of Western art, including American Pop Art, Minimalism, Photorealism, and Conceptualism, as well as to the West’s long tradition of trompe l’oeil painting, which dates back to ancient Greece. At the same time, the self-effacing modesty implied by replication, the contemplative quietude of the “empty” objects, and the objects’ thematic humility, are suggestive of a peculiarly urban Zen sensibility. Although a substantial number of Asian artists have in recent years achieved recognition for works that meld post-war American art styles with Asian traditions, Oshiro is exceptional among them in making American culture the central thematic focus of his works. Despite the extraordinary verisimilitude and reverence for detail, Oshiro’s paintings transcend mere replication. Refinements in color and composition, subtly introduced marks and stains, and thoughtfully selected stickers express the artist’s own ambivalent feelings about American culture.

Born in Okinawa in 1967, Oshiro began life under American occupation. He remained in Okinawa, the most Americanized region of Japan, until he moved to Los Angeles in 1986 and slowly worked his way through college. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at California State University, Los Angeles, in 2002, and began exhibiting regularly in Los Angeles the same year. Recently, Oshiro has been included in group exhibitions in New York, Miami, and other cities in the U.S. His work was included in the Orange County Museum of Art’s 2004 California Biennial Exhibition, and the UCLA Hammer Museum exhibition Thing: New Sculpture from Los Angeles, of 2005, where they were singled out in critical reviews. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles. He will be attending the LVAM Members’ Preview Reception, held April 13, 2007.

The exhibition is organized for LVAM by LVAM Director Libby Lumpkin, assisted by LVAM Deputy Director Renee Coppola, and LVAM Graphic Designer, Courtney Howerton. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color, illustrated exhibition catalog, which includes an essay by Lumpkin.