Currently featured in 13FOREST’s exhibition Space/Light/City, Kenji's and Dana's solo and collaborative paintings and murals have been well received in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Toronto and many other cities. In a show of their paintings at Boston’s Lot F Gallery last spring, a PR piece referred to their work is a melding of order and chaos. It was correct, but stillness and motion would have been as apt a phrase. While much of Kenji’s work, particularly his stenciled paintings, have solid form, Dana’s nonrepresentational “splash” style exudes kinetic energy.
The interesting question is not just how the two men’s aesthetics work when combined into single works of art, but also how two such different artists can work together successfully – seamlessly, as they put it.
Earlier this month I sat down with Kenji and Dana in their South Boston studio, and talked with them about everything from Kenji’s arrival in the US from Japan, to Dana’s youthful involvement with graffiti artists. It was a balmy night. The studio floor was incidentally beautiful from years of splattered paint. Soon the two men would have to leave to repair Dana’s motorcycle.