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Paintings that look constructed, built like homes, making their abstraction like a plan for its composition. Ito's paintings are plain, direct, and confusing, a straightforward depiction belying its subterfuge. You unpack their construction like the pleasure of a model, or architectural funbook, same as of say Tomma Abts, huge precursors to the puzzification and surreal ipad-iconists of today, the trend for paintings tangled icon of itself, abjuring the directness of recognition that design implies, instead designed for misrecognition.
"The pleasure of Abts’s paintings is that of origami, or well constructed puzzle, like setting a good corner in New Mexico pasture, the blankness of a Morandi, solving simply its own internal puzzling, like shaker furniture, a clever construction in a protestant like satisfaction of a few-frills job completed."
See too: Tomma Abts at David Zwirner, Charline von Heyl at Gisela Capitain, Emily Mae Smith at Rodolphe Janssen, Ray Yoshida at David Nolan, Sascha Braunig at Kunsthall Stavanger, Alice Tippit at Night Club, Lui Shtini at Kate Werble, Sascha Braunig at Rodolphe Janssen, Sascha Braunig at Foxy Production, Mathew Cerletty at Office Baroque, Oscar Tuazon at Le Consortium & Paradise Garage