Satoshi Tada, “The Layers of the Feel – Overlapping Sensations, the Existence Called ‘Me’”
- info9440318
- Nov 12
- 4 min read
2025.12.1 Mon - 12.15 Mon
SAN BANCHO GALLERY is pleased to present
Satoshi Tada: “The Layers of the Feel – Overlapping Sensations, the Existence Called ‘Me’.”
This exhibition marks Tada’s third solo show at SAN BANCHO GALLERY and represents a further deepening of his ongoing pursuit to visualize the mind.
Tada perceives the human mind not as a single, uniform entity, but as multiple overlapping layers that continually merge and separate through cycles of contradiction and harmony. He seeks to visualize these complex mental and emotional movements through form, color, and the layering of paint.
Up to now, Tada has expressed the delicate nuances of his own inner experiences—shifts of emotion, subtle feelings, and the sensations they evoke—through motifs such as Loulou and spatial compositions.
In this exhibition, his focus expands toward a broader inquiry into the very nature of the human mind, explored
through three conceptual axes:
Existence is Sensation
The self that decides and the self that is decided join hands
Let the complex remain complex
Through these perspectives, Tada unfolds a new dimension of expression.
● Background of the Work
Through the establishment of the character Loulou, this narrative-style exhibition depicted a state of mind that finds hope through accepting oneself and others.
It expressed the act of embracing one’s pain and difficulties as integral parts of oneself.
Using Loulou as a medium, Tada delved more deeply into the joys and sorrows of emotion.He questioned whether emotions are not merely surface-level experiences, but rather spatially structured phenomena, and sought to express sensations such as height and depth in an abstract manner.By intentionally refraining from giving emotions a tangible form, and instead entrusting “emotion” and “sensation” to color and space, he aimed to create an experience through which viewers could come into contact with their own inner worlds.
Through these experiences, Tada came to consider that the mind, emotion, and sensation may exist as tangible entities—something that can be perceived through the five senses—manifested in color, depth, thickness, light and shadow, temperature, humidity, and viscosity.
In other words, he recognizes these elements as something that can be perceived as “texture” or “feel.”
In this exhibition, Tada takes on a new challenge: layering both the sensations he has expressed up to now and the newly discovered ones, constructing them as layers of the mind—the layers of the feel.
● The Existence of “Loulou”
Since his university graduation, Satoshi Tada has continued to create works in the Given Series (2008–2021), a body of work that deeply reflects the artist’s fundamental desire to “bring happiness to people through warmth.”
Through familiar motifs such as houses, cat-like humans, candles, and starry skies, he visually expressed his wish to bring joy to others. Even at that time, his exploration went beyond the simple symbolism of red as “warmth,” as he pursued ways to evoke a sense of warmth through any color—experimenting extensively with color, texture, and materiality.
However, as his practice evolved, Tada began to question whether “warmth” alone was sufficient to truly reach and accompany the depths of the human heart.
In response to that question, Loulou was born—a presence that appears in his Born Series (2020–2024).
Loulou is a being rooted in Tada’s own past experiences, born as a symbol of resistance against fate—a presence that embodies liberation from repression and inner conflict.
While Tada projects aspects of himself onto Loulou, he also regards it as an intimate and familiar entity—one that gently accompanies the hidden emotions dwelling deep within the heart.
The form of Loulou reflects Tada’s exploration of artistic motifs, techniques, and aesthetic ideals drawn from both Western and Eastern art histories.
Its current appearance evolved through his study of natural forms, ancient divine figures, wooden and clay sculptures, and the physical structures of humans and animals.
Tada perceives the human heart as a convergence of two emotional flows: the inwardly arising feelings represented by the Born Series, and the outwardly exchanged emotions represented by the Given Series. This circulation reflects a universal movement of the human psyche—one with which the artist deeply resonates.
In this exhibition, Tada presents a series of works that serve as a bridge between the Given Series and the Born Series.
While extending from the latter, these new works explore the layers of sensation that lie between the two, connecting them through the medium of “feel.”
Within the works, numerous versions of Loulou appear—each with distinct forms and expressions, each embodying different textures of emotion and sensation.
Rather than depicting Loulou’s own world, these works use Loulou as a medium to reflect psychological landscapes and aspects of contemporary society.
In today’s world, people often conceal their true faces—behind masks or glasses, or through anonymous communication on social media—while characters in media and advertising have become the entities that capture our gaze.
Tada believes that in contemporary society, characters convey emotion more effectively than faces, and thus positions Loulou as a modern-day tronie—a portrait of expression and allegory.
Through Loulou, Tada gives form to the many shapes of the human mind, emotion, and sensation, inviting viewers to feel them through his works.
We warmly invite you to experience this world of intricate and richly layered emotions.
多田 知史 Satoshi Tada
Born in Tokyo.
Based in Tokyo, she mainly participates in exhibitions and related art events.Her works explore the theme of Japanese Painting × Street Art, combining traditional Japanese painting materials such as gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments, and washi paper with visual elements inspired by street culture—such as tagging (letter-based compositions) and urban aesthetics.
By blending the tradition of nihonga—which values natural materials—with the futuristic imagery of street art, she creates works that convey both the refined texture of classic materials and a sense of stylish modernity.
Awards
Selected, The 1st Idemitsu Art Award (formerly Shell Art Award)
Selected, The 39th Ueno Royal Museum Grand Prize Exhibition
Selected, The 56th Kanagawa Art Exhibition
Tomio Koyama Award, Independent Tokyo 2023
2024 Public Art Project “YOU FEEL” — Artwork displayed on the Shibuya Station bridge pier
SAN BANCHO GALLERY
三番町ギャラリー
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