Sometimes good paintings can be something like small escape paths. As sometimes they offer you the opportunity to flee for a brief while to a different place to disappear into a different time. Hideaki Yamanobe’s paintings definitely come close to functioning in this way. Yet initially they seem to be little more than various gray tones on differently sized canvases. Figurativeness is not something to which Yamanobe aspires. Much more, the artist, who was born in Tokyo in 1964, brings together traditions of Western painting such as Abstract Expressionism with influences from his Asian culture. The results are contemplative and highly exciting abstract pieces with unobtrusive color tones. To this end, applying the paint in different ways Yamanobe places several gradually brighter layers of paint on a black grounding, finishing this off with a bright gray that verges on white. Contemporary music forms a key source of inspiration for him. He repeatedly attempts to transpose compositions into a visual medium and render them tangible. The medium of painting – in Yamanobe’s case it serves to visualize sensitive and emotional processes and is therefore actually an avenue for distancing the all too familiar for a short while.