The chimerical paintings of Yosuke Ueno return in a new show at Thinkspace Projects. “But Beautiful,” kicking off this weekend, features works from the self-taught, Tokyo-based painter that take influence from “everything from Japanese culture, ancient Greek mythology, Tokyo Street fashion and video games to Disney animation and the Western canon of art history.” Ueno was last featured on cctvta.com here.
“Thematically, Ueno’s works are inspired by several influences, including the polytheistic tradition of Japanese Shinto, an ancient Japanese religion with a symbolic tradition of personifying the sacred energies of every living and inanimate thing as individual deities,” the gallery says. “According to this worldview, the universe is a complex amalgam of sacred, interdependent energies and personalities, and the tangible vessels of this plane, inhabited by the spectral presence of spirits and ancestry.”
Ueno’s show runs Aug. 4-25. See more works from the show below.
Last weekend, 
Keyes
Taking influence from Byzantine art and other eras of religious art, Aleksandar Todorovic renders contemporary tech figures as religious icons and social media symbols as sacred, in egg tempera and acrylic. Elsewhere, his painted and sculpture works look at consumerism and contemporary global politics. He recently displayed this works under the title “Religion Remastered.”