Born: 1936 Anaheim, California
Lives and works in Fresno, California
website: www.robertogata.com
Resolving juxtapositions of disparate elements into meaningful and unified surface is the challenge that the painter Robert Katsusuke Ogata confronts each day- a challenge he has set for himself eschewing a less difficult path of recognizable form. Given by birth the natural gift of a good eye and the exquisite drawing hand that creates the beautiful flow of calligraphic line, Ogata has chosen a path influenced by architectonics and the geometrics of the examined shape of rectangle and square. The paintings in the Nara Series reference the architecture of the ancient medieval Japanese city of Nara. These paintings use the textural surface and large-scaled geometrics to create abstract form and are enclosed at either end by narrow vertical shapes that reappear throughout many of Ogata's paintings. Often the bottom edges of the paintings are worked so that the viewer's imagination draws on personal references. Landscape invades the large scale he has chosen for the development of mystery - the lush surface of his paintings draw the viewer in to the work through the use of transparent surfaces worked with unusual mediums.
Combining the Zen tenet that the act of painting is a form of mediation and the American abstract expressionist notion that art is best when exuberantly expressive of the individual, Ogata produces an art that embraces mulitple perspectives.
-Excerpt from Robert Katsusuke Ogata: Between Figure and Ground a twentyfive year survey. Essay by Jacqueline Pilar. Exhibition curated by Jacquelin Pilar.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2009 Chandler Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
2009 Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
2007 Chandler Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
2007 Art Now Fair, Miami Beach, FL
2006 Core: Fig Tree Gallery, Fresno, CA
2004 Gallerie Dionisi, West Hollywood, CA
2003 JJ Brookings Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2003 University of California Center, Fresno, CA
2002 JJ Brookings Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 JJ Brookings Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1999 JJ Brookings Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1995 Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
1995 Pence Gallery, Davis, CA
1995 Bates College, Lewiston, ME
1995 Fig Tree Gallery, Fresno, CA
1994 Fresno Art Musuem, Fresno, CA
1994 Fresno City College, Fresno, CA
1986 Fresno Metropolitan Art Musuem, Fresno, CA
1974 Fresno Art Musuem, Fresno, CA
1971 California State College, Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles, CA
1968 Tulare County Art Museum, Visalia, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2007 Twenty Twenty, Arte Americas 20th Anniversary, Fresno,CA
2006 Chandler Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
2004 Gallery 1212, Burlingame, CA
2003 Victoria Boyce Gallery, Scottsdale and Tucson, AZ
2003 Ira Wolk Gallery, St Helena, CA
2001 Five from Fresno, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1997 San Joaquin National Exhibition: Awarded First Prize Fresno Art Council, City Hall, Fresno, CA
1995 Artspace Gallery, Fresno City College, Fresno, CA
1991 New Wave: Artists to Watch in the 90’s: Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
1986 The Way of Tea: Inspirations: The Gallery of Craft Alliance, St. Louis, MO
1983 Matsuri: Hayward Forum of the Arts, Hayward, CA
1975 New Faces: Malvina Millery Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1975 Contemporary American Paintings: Leland House. Taipei
1973 Ward Nasse Gallery, New York, NY
1968 California Arts Commission, Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
1963 35: DAI_Kuntsausstellung, Regensburg, Germany
Awards
1993
Art of California Discovery Awards Competition: Gold Award
1992
Art of California Discovery Awards Competition: Silver Award
Publications
“100 Aristis of the West Coast”, by Douglas Buller Schiffer Publishing
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