Edwin Ushiro at the Project Gallery

Edwin Ushiro “While the Tides Guide You Back Home”
ProjectgalleryLA.com

I chanced to stumble upon a fantastic show at Project gallery in Culver City a couple weekends ago. While it’s quite possible to get completely lost in the murmur of happenings within the Culver City arts scene, this show very much stands out. Ushiro is a young artist already possessing extreme technical prowess, and after he’s done pouring it into his works it’s nearly impossible to tell how they were created. Using some combination of drawing, digital coloring, printing, mounting, painting, antiquing and varnishing, the pieces achieve a strange translucent depth, creating a foggy window into the seemingly intangible. Some of the larger works achieve a complexity that initially feel almost abstract as the denizens of the paintings break into fractal muted tones, and swirling, tidal compositions.

Conceptually the works leave a bit to be desired for me, as the titles, which tend to read more like bad poetry, evoke a wretchedly sweet sentimentality. It’s obvious that the paintings are of old friends from Ushiro’s native Hawaii, done with the intent to create some sort of sensation of longing or time-invoked loss. Not knowing any of these people, and not giving much of a crap, the conceptual center of she show comes off completely emotional instead of even remotely conceptual. The whole show feels like some Hallmark card from your grandmother. I can only hope that at some point the well of old acquaintances and childhood memories runs dry for Ushiro and he’s forced to look some place else for inspiration.
--Snowflake