Marlborough is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with Yoshiaki Mochizuki.

Mochizuki’s exquisite small-scale works reference the tradition of geometric abstraction while transforming how we experience paintings, making them explicitly contingent on both their setting and the moving body of the viewer. The direction and the quality of the light, the color of the room’s walls, the unusual height at which they are hung, and the angle from which the viewer looks at the paintings’ surfaces all dramatically affect what will be seen.

Mochizuki’s works are built up, layer upon layer, of gesso, dye-based ink, tinted clay, and palladium leaf. The top layer doesn’t dominate those underneath; rather the layers coexist as a result of the artist’s burnishing, scratching, and pulling off parts of the surface with tape. Complex constellations of parallel or radiating burnished lines create a polyphonic effect upon the regular grid of sheets of palladium leaf. From different vantage points the palladium catches the light differently, and the geometric patterns change, reverse themselves, and suggest varying illusions of depth.