Shin Masaharu is part of the young contemporary Japanese art scene and but shares subject matters and contexts with artists from other countries and cultural backgrounds. He avoids being prisoner of the legacy or the cultural identity framework. 

Shin Masaharu questions the significance of art in society and how it has evolved over time. He eventually manages to confound our expectations of Japanese contemporary art adding further dimensions to his artistic creation.

Art doesn’t express cultural or societal values in a straight way; instead, it is a tool that allows to visually confirm changes in those values. Artists as well as authors, filmmakers, fashion designers and even culinary creators or influencers do then contribute to changing those values. Art history has a long tradition of categorising artworks by movements, styles, geography, or epochs; as a result, one often tries to see the legacy of the country of origin of an artist.

Shin's recent works question the value given to gold or silver in our societies both in terms of cultural tradition and intrinsic value.

Through his new series of powerful works named Kohama Island, Shin Masaharu uses a gold colour making reference to gold leaves that mirror a portion of traditional Japanese paintings. It however has to be perceived as a criticism of the established local quest seeking to imitate or reproduce a visual tradition of its own genesis. 

Creating his work using a semi-industrial method with the silkscreen process, he erases traces of the artist’s path, however his work is also a mirror of his mind, and that is why he includes shadows of his personal memory and episodes of his private life within his creations.