Shintaro Ohata's unique blend of the 2D and 3D art

Have you seen the amazing work of Shintaro Ohata? If not, I'm very pleased to introduce to you this extremely talented Japanese. Ohata has a distinct style of placing sculptures in front of paintings, that when viewed directly appear to be a single artwork. The figures are sculpted from polystyrene while the backgrounds are painted on canvas using oil paints. The 40-year-old artist from Hiroshima has to his credit, various solo and group exhibitions, commissioned masterpieces, and several awards. Via his artist statement:

"Shintaro Ohata is an artist who depicts little things in everyday life like scenes of a movie and captures all sorts of light in his work with a unique touch: convenience stores at night, city roads on rainy day and fast-food shops at dawn etc. His paintings show us ordinary sceneries as dramas. He is also known for his characteristic style; placing sculptures in front of paintings, and shows them as one work, a combination of 2-D and 3-D world. He says that it all started from when he wondered 'I could bring the atmosphere or dynamism of my paintings with a more different way if I place sculptures in front of paintings'. Many viewers tend to assume that there is a light source set into his work itself because of the strong expression of lights in his sculpture."