Sono Osato

Press Release

Brian Gross Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Submergence, an exhibition of nine new paintings on panel by former Bay Area artist Sono Osato, on Saturday, July 8, 2017, from 3-5:30 pm. Rendered with tinted rabbit skin glue, oil paint, and assemblage, Osato’s paintings explore the interconnections between language, archeology, and geologic time. The exhibition will be on view through August 26, 2017.

Mining parts from vintage typewriters and computers, Sono Osato re-contextualizes remnants of technology and communication to create rhythmic abstractions that reveal layers of the past. Recalling the strata of artifacts within an archeological excavation, Osato’s surfaces of reclaimed objects have moved towards a more painterly approach. In Giyan Tepe (2015) and Arvand-Rud (2016) the heavy incrustations of objects in previous works have largely fallen away, leaving behind their painted silhouettes and a few remaining elements to form the compositions. In Gubo, Tawfono, and Mawja (all 2017) they have disappeared completely, leaving the viewer to glimpse the veiled memory of their presence within the painted surfaces. Combining layered forms and dynamic linear movement, Osato’s paintings embody the integration of the past with the formal rigors of abstraction and assemblage.

Osato’s work is known to the Bay Area art audience by her Mandala With Doorknob (1998) at the Oakland Museum of California, her monumental painting Meena (2005) in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and her major paintings Ken No Sen (2000) and Go (1999) at the di Rosa in Napa.

Sono Osato was born in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1960. She received her BFA from Arizona State University, Tempe, and her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA), Oakland. Osato’s work has been featured in exhibitions throughout the Bay Area and New York, including the San Jose Museum of Art; Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; ISE Foundation, New York, NY; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Shore Institute for Contemporary Art, Long Branch, NJ; and the Dumbo Arts Center (DAC), Brooklyn, NY, among others. Her work can be found in the collections of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Oakland Museum of California; di Rosa, Napa, CA; and the Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, OH. Sono Osato has been the recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants in 1989, 1999, and 2008. She currently lives and works in New York City.