Melbourne-based artist DOCG returns to Japan, this time bringing with him an exhibition that challenges the act of seeing itself. Opening on May 24 at RISE ABOVE GALLERY in Osaka, BLINK TWICE is more than just a display of works—it’s a confrontation with perception. DOCG is not an artist bound by medium or tradition. Rooted in street culture but not confined to it, his practice spans across disciplines, incorporating sculpture, digital media, painting, and environmental installations. Each iteration of his work reinvents itself through context, echoing his deep, lived engagement with Japanese culture—a culture he has visited annually to absorb, remix, and re-present from a distinctly personal lens.

Why blink twice?

Because once may not be enough. Because what we perceive at first glance may be an illusion—or a half-truth. This show suggests that reality, whether digital or physical, real or artificial, is not fixed. Instead, it’s ambiguous, layered, and shifting depending on who is looking and from where.

DOCG: Between the Street and the Studio

To understand BLINK TWICE, one must first understand DOCG as both a persona and a method. He came up through Melbourne’s dense graffiti and skateboarding subcultures—spaces where art exists ephemerally, scrawled on walls, caught in motion, or lived in lived-in clothing. These origins are crucial. They imbued DOCG’s practice with an instinctive feel for improvisation, rebellion, and the fleeting nature of visual presence.

But what makes DOCG distinct from a traditional street artist is his ability to transcend environment. He takes the raw texture of asphalt and alleyways and juxtaposes it with hyper-conceptual ideas—philosophies borrowed from phenomenology, post-digital theory, and the aesthetics of simulation. In short: he builds bridges between the seen and the felt, and then dares the audience to walk across them without falling.

His visits to Japan have become pivotal to his artistic evolution. DOCG doesn’t approach Japan as a tourist or voyeur. Instead, he walks the streets of Osaka, Fukuoka, and Shibuya not just to observe but to absorb. He sketches signage, photographs rust, records ambient sound, and listens—not just to people, but to rhythm, silence, atmosphere. From vending machines to temple gravel, from manga panels to moss growing on stone lanterns—everything becomes data, texture, metaphor.

The Exhibition: A Practice of Uncertainty

BLINK TWICE isn’t a showcase of singular objects. It’s an installation of contradictions—artifacts that simultaneously affirm and deny the viewer’s expectations. The works are built to deceive, reveal, and most importantly, reframe what it means to “look.”

Theme: Perception as a Mirror

DOCG’s curatorial concept centers around perception—what we see versus what we believe we see. Each work operates as a perceptual trap. In one piece, a wall-mounted print appears digital from afar but reveals physical brushstrokes upon closer inspection. In another, a sculpture rotates based on a motion sensor, reacting only when the viewer looks away. A series of small canvases are layered with mirrored vinyls, reflecting both the gallery light and the gaze of the observer, effectively turning the viewer into part of the composition.

This is not accidental. DOCG is obsessed with viewer participation, not in the gimmicky sense of “interactive art,” but in the phenomenological idea that an artwork only becomes real when experienced. And that experience is not universal. It’s filtered—through memory, emotion, attention span, cultural bias, even fatigue.

In one of his statements, DOCG writes:

“What you see isn’t just what’s there. It’s a negotiation. Between your mind and your moment. Between the light and your lack of sleep. Between the world and your wounds.”

This quote underscores the exhibition’s central proposition: perception is unstable. Reality is plural. And every blink might reset what we know.

Physical vs Digital: The Collapse of Medium

In BLINK TWICE, DOCG continues his inquiry into the tension between the physical and digital—a theme increasingly central in the post-pandemic era of hybrid existence.

Some works resemble AR filters frozen into physical form. One wall-hung piece contains layers of lenticular prints that appear animated depending on the viewer’s movement, mimicking the scrolling behavior of social media timelines. Another sculptural object looks like a 3D-rendered glitch: a concrete block sliced asymmetrically, coated with iridescent pigment that shifts colors under changing light conditions.

Here, DOCG plays with “dual perception”: the expectation that something is either real or virtual, original or manipulated. But in his world, these binaries collapse. What results is a hybrid field where the hand-painted imitates the digital, and the digitally fabricated mimics the hand-crafted.

This extends to the exhibition’s sound design, composed by DOCG in collaboration with a Tokyo-based producer. The ambient audio morphs as the viewer moves through the space, simulating spatial audio found in video games. In a way, BLINK TWICE isn’t just viewed—it’s navigated.

The Gallery as Lab: Rise Above Gallery’s Role

The choice of RISE ABOVE GALLERY in Osaka is no coincidence. Known for showcasing cutting-edge contemporary artists who straddle culture, fashion, and street ideology, the gallery has become a breeding ground for interdisciplinary experiments.

DOCG’s relationship with the gallery is symbiotic. He has previously exhibited smaller-scale works here, but BLINK TWICE represents the first fully immersive, full-gallery takeover. The space has been radically transformed: walls repainted, lighting adjusted to mimic time-of-day effects, floors reworked to include embedded prints and neon glyphs.

This collaboration pushes both the artist and the institution into new territory. For the gallery, it’s a redefinition of its curatorial voice. For DOCG, it’s the closest thing to a solo museum presentation in Japan to date.

Cultural Fluency: Why Japan?

DOCG’s deep affection for Japan is woven through the exhibition. Beyond aesthetics, there is a respect for rhythm and restraint—the idea of ma (間), the Japanese concept of negative space or pause, is evident in the layout. Works are not crowded. White space dominates. Viewers are given air, silence, delay.

Additionally, the exhibition catalog includes kanji annotations handwritten by the artist. Signage appears in both English and Japanese, not for international accessibility alone, but because DOCG views bilingualism as another visual layer—another interface of meaning.

This duality—of place, of language, of visual grammar—manifests in how viewers from different backgrounds interpret the show. A Japanese viewer may link the abstraction of a certain motif to Shōji screen geometry, while an Australian viewer may instead see city grid maps. DOCG allows this variance. He invites it.

Impression

What does it mean to blink? To reset the eye? To momentarily lose vision, and then reclaim it, changed? In BLINK TWICE, DOCG argues that art’s truest function isn’t to decorate or narrate, but to destabilize certainty. To remind us that we are not fixed beings. That perception is provisional. That reality is layered.

His Osaka exhibition is less about final meaning and more about generative confusion. It’s a space where truth shimmers and bends—like a reflection on water. You see something. You blink. It changes. Was it ever what you thought?

In the end, BLINK TWICE is not just a show. It’s a practice. A meditation. A dare: see again. Look deeper. And maybe this time, you’ll notice what you missed the first.

Exhibition Details:

• Title: BLINK TWICE
• Artist: DOCG
• Location: RISE ABOVE GALLERY, Osaka
• Dates: May 24, 2025 – July 14, 2025
• Mediums Featured: Mixed media, sculpture, lenticular print, environmental installation, digital pigment, sound art
• Languages: English / Japanese

 

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