Born in 1990 in Tottori, Yukimasa Ida has rapidly gained international attention since 2016, following his receipt of the 2016 CAF Award in Japan, selected by artist Kohei Nawa, and his participation in the charity auction of Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. This young Japanese artist has captivated audiences around the world with his artistic philosophy of ‘Ichigo-Ichie’—literally meaning ‘a once-in-a-lifetime moment’—which explores the contemporary moment of the here and now and its ephemeral presence between the past and future, life and death. From portraits of influential iconic figures to the documentation of ordinary everyday scenes, along with inquiries into art history, he creates works as markers of both individual life and collective history, crystallising quotidian encounters with the wider world into timeless beings.

The present lot Sky -red light- comes from an early phase of Ida’s career after his graduation from Tokyo University of Arts. Created in 2016 and featured in one of Ida’s earliest solo exhibitions Star Child at Ken Nakahashi Gallery in Tokyo, it is a rare and fresh exemplar, showcasing some of the prototypical techniques that would later define the artist’s singular approach. Executed in oil on a monumental diptych, the work permeates with a stirring sense of solemnity, made all the more captivating and mysterious with the atmospheric haziness achieved through a flurry of bold brushstrokes in varying shades of deep crimson. A subtleness of distance that confuses our perception is infused through Ida’s harmonious melding of realism and abstraction, imbued with overflowing emotional energy. These traits would become hallmarks of Ida’s art, which navigates essentially themes of memory and identity.

Encapsulating the layered past within the transient ‘now,’ Ida’s art has also been discussed as one that traverses temporal boundaries. Sky -red light- is an intriguing example of the artist’s early attempt to rethink our present positionality at a larger scale viewed from the macro standpoint of meta-history and even the cosmos. Ida experiments here by translating art-historical markers with a contemporary sensibility: specifically, the theme emulates the famous oil painting from the Meiji period, Shigeru Aoki’s A Gift of the Sea, which boldly exerts a stylised, romantic touch to reimagine the rustic life in Japan’s fishermen villages, conjuring up a dramatic composition rich with personalised experiences. Drawing upon this genealogy of romanticism, Ida reinterprets this iconic tableau into a daringly subjective vista, devoid of legible indicators of objective space and time. Significantly, Sky -red light- further serves as a prototypical work that informs a later important piece by Ida in 2022, Blessing of The Sea, in which he radically alters the palette and mood of the original work, diverting the historical piece into a reflection of modern life. This later rendition was included in the artist’s first large-scale museum exhibition in Japan, Panta Rhei – For as long as the world turns at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art in Kyoto.

Yukimasa Ida’s works have been widely exhibited at important institutions worldwide, including Picasso Birthplace Museum in Malaga, Yonago City Museum of Art in Tottori and Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art in Kyoto. Most recently, Villepin Gallery in Hong Kong has announced its representation of the artist in Asia, alongside the artist’s global representation Mariane Ibrahim. His latest exhibition Yukimasa Ida: Day Zero is currently on view at Villepin through 31 March 2025.