NASHVILLE, Tennessee – New York City artist Masamitsu Shigeta will be attending an upcoming exhibit in Nashville hosted by Studio 200, a traveling art exhibition collective founded in 2013. The shows vary in curation, media, theme, location, and artists and are ran by a community-based collective. Holding an open forum for exhibitions, interdisciplinary workshops, and performances, Studio 200 has curated several exhibitions and installations across the country.
An acrylic artist providing an unfiltered, yet illustrious look at the various sceneries of New York City, Shigeta is chiefly focused on displaying the balance of everyday life, capturing images he sees on his walks to and from his studio. His work has been in a period of an exciting transition to integrate sculptural elements embodied in handcrafted frames made of found materials.
Studio 200 has hosted several exhibitions promoting artists hoping to not only broaden the definition of art but offer greater meaning and depth. Most recently, the studio hosted Imaginary Timeline, featuring artists Omer Ben-Zvi, Nick Doty, Aubrey Saget, Lara Saget, Joshua Raiffe, and Virginia Yearick in an exhibit displaying a combination of film, sketches, and paintings taking patrons on a journey in observing the dimension of human emotion.
Born and raised in Tokyo, visual artist Masamitsu Shigeta arrived in New York in 2013 when he began attending the School of Visual Arts, earning his BFA before going on to earn his MFA at NYU. A regular feature with Situations Gallery and Tyler Park Arts, the rising artist usually attends NADA art fairs while also featuring his work in exhibits across the country.
“My biggest focus is just sharing my work with as many people as possible,” Shigeta explains. “There’s a lot of beauty that we pass by every day, and it doesn’t have to go beyond the color and the shape of things. The geometry of the world we live in is something that is endlessly fascinating to me. I want to share that with others because I feel like that perspective is one that we all could share if we simply had the time to look at the world around us. People are sometimes too busy to notice the beauty in life.”
Masamitsu Shigeta’s appearance in Studio 200’s January exhibit in Nashville will bring his work to another cultural hub. Hoping to translate the energy of New York City to artistic spaces and scenes across the United States, Shigeta’s work has been featured in exhibits in Miami and Los Angeles as well.
“I think the concepts I’m exploring aren’t foreign or alien. That’s the whole point,” Shigeta says. “My work is about taking what we already see and putting a lens over it. Like a magnifying glass. In that way, some of the qualities become sharper and others become obscured. In the obscurities, I think people see scenes from their own lives.”
To learn more, view Shigeta’s work on his Instagram.
