March 20 through June 2003

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to announce the Tower 49 Project, a new installation by Shigeno Ichimura, a Japanese-born New York-based painter and multimedia artist. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, March 20, 6-8pm in the lobby of Tower 49 located at 12 East 49th Street, Manhattan.

A series of nine monumental 84 x 66 in. canvas paintings has been created by the artist specifically for the tall open wall-space in the lobby of Tower 49, the distinctively designed midtown office building. Like tapestries in a church, the featured paintings, executed in abstract style filled with earth-tone colors, quietly illuminate this high-tech, high-energy reception area through which 3,000 office workers and visitors pass every day. Ichimuraês work is entitled "Moment", as if suggesting that people stop for a moment of contemplation.

      This artist has said that the "Moment" series was inspired by his fascination with the complicated alchemy of –rusting." After applying mineral pigments to the canvas background, Ichimura brushes on a corrosive that causes a gradual change of color and texture. Given the myriad possibilities of chance and control, each monumental painting captures a distinctive moment created by the interaction of material and time.

Shown mostly in non-profit spaces, Ichimuraês work has been selected and installed by the management of Tower 49 as part of its public art project promoting emerging artists. The 613-feet tall, 45-story tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the architect team best known for the Sears Tower in Chicago. In the two decades since it was built, Tower 49 has been a vital architectural counterpoint to the neighboring Rockefeller Center complex.

Born in 1963 in Japan, Shigeno Ichimura moved to New York City in 1989. During his 8-year tenure as director of the Ise Cultural Foundation, he was an advocate of New Yorkês Asian art community. At the same time, he was continuing to pursue his own career as an artist. He has received many prestigious awards, including a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, an Emerge 2000 Fellowship from the Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, NJ, Honorable Mention in the Texas National 2000 Art Competition, and 2nd prize at the Texas National '97.

      M.Y. ART PROSPECTS, a New York-based contemporary art gallery established in 1998, promotes the international careers and reputations of emerging artists. Our new location on 547 West 27th Street will open late March with a showing of additional paintings from Shigeno Ichimuraês "Moment" series.

Shigeno Ichimura "Tower 49 Project"
Location: Lobby of Tower 49, 12 East 49th Street, bet. Fifth Ave. and Madison Ave. Subway: B, D, F, V to Rockefeller Center