CAN YOU HEAR MY HEARTBEAT WHAT IS A NORMAL PULSE RATE?
YUSUKE OKADA

JANUARY 31 - MARCH 2
OPENING RECEPTION JANUARY 31, 6-9PM

Yusuke Okada. November 2024, Acrylic on Canvas.

Eleventh Hour Art is pleased to present Can You Hear My Heartbeat What Is a Normal Pulse Rate? a solo exhibition by Yusuke Okada, opening Friday, January 31st from 6-9pm and running through March 2 in our Brooklyn gallery: 61 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11201.

After a breakout solo exhibition in 2023 and a sell-out booth at the Affordable Art Fair in 2024, Yusuke’s equal parts hilarious and tender paintings have launched him to the top of the emerging New York arts scene. Can You Hear My Heartbeat… offers that suckerpunch folk-art Yusuke we’ve come to know best— bright acrylic works with his signature characters and text captions, offering both a biting critic of society and an inward, self-deprecating humor we can’t help but relate to.

Perhaps what makes Yusuke’s works so irresistible is the perspective of the artist himself— a Japanese punk musician who grew up in a small town outside of Tokyo and came to the US to tour in bands. During lockdown, forced to stop touring, his art took a new form, and he taught himself to paint. Over the past four years, Yusuke’s work moved quickly from album covers to large scale paintings that are coveted by collectors across the globe.

Can You Hear My Heartbeat also offers a glimpse into Yusuke’s experiments in new mediums, such as oil and found objects. In one work, a beautifully rendered, oil painted hillside sits perfectly within an Amazon review of “Family Values.” (In which he gives 5 stars— “Only 2.99! Very Compact! Easy enough to disassemble to throw away.") In another work, a stack of hand-painted toilet paper rolls sit in a pyramid adorned with Supreme logos, characters such as naked angels, and text: “Makes your butt stylish!”

Join us for Yusuke Okada’s second solo show on January 31st to see his new series of works that, while may not give you a break from your life, will at least make you laugh about it.