September 26 – December 20
Naotaka Hiro’s painting practice was shaped in part by his early interest in filmmaking. When he moved to Los Angeles from Japan in 1990, his initial focus on film was complicated by a language barrier—an experience that continues to inform his way of working, without being directly translated into subject matter. The artist’s unique approach considers the objective and subjective, both author and subject, and he often orients his body to the composition in ways that obfuscate his ability to see the work in its entirety before completion. Cutting circular holes in his canvases, where he then places his legs, Naotaka wraps the canvas around his body and paints from within the form. His paintings are constructed through a rhythmic and considered process. Working intuitively and carefully, he moves in and out of relation to the composition, sometimes in proximity to and other times at a distance from the canvas.
Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art, co-presented with the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and made possible with the generous support of Eleanor and Francis Shen
Bio
Bio
Naotaka Hiro
Naotaka Hiro (b. 1972, Osaka, Japan; lives and works in Los Angeles, California) explores the limits and unknowability of his own body through painting, drawing, sculpture, and video. His work emerges from the dual positions of actor and director, creator and viewer, subject and object. Hiro’s performative approach bears traces of the gestural experiments of Japan’s Gutai Art Association and the visceral corporeality of West Coast performance art, both of which he became familiar with during his studies in California. In 1997, Hiro received his BA from University of California, Los Angeles and received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2000.
Hiro’s work has recently been included in the 2025 Roppongi Crossing at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, and the 2024 exhibition What It Becomes, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His work has also been exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Warehouse, Dallas, Texas; Aspen Museum of Art, Colorado; and Centre d’Art Contemporain, La Ferme du Buisson, France. Hiro has had numerous solo exhibitions at Bortolami, New York; Herald Street, London; The Box, Los Angeles; and Misako & Rosen, Tokyo, among others. He has received grants from the Art Matters Foundation and the Asian and Pacific Islander Artist Presenting Initiative.
His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany; and many more.
Photo by Darcy Hemley-Casucci.
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Accessibility
Art Museum at the University of Toronto - University of Toronto Art Centre
Accessible entrance and washrooms
Accessible ramps / elevators
AODA compliant building
Accessible parkingUniversity of Toronto Art Centre (15 King’s College Circle) Accessible Entrance: There is a ramped entrance at the northwest corner of University College (near the Croft Chapter House).
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Getting There
Art Museum at the University of Toronto - University of Toronto Art Centre
TTC: Museum Station; Queen’s Park Station; 506 Carlton streetcar; and the Route 5 bus
Bike Share: Willcocks St / St. George St and Wellesley St W / Queen’s Park Crescent
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