Subliminal Projects is pleased to present Earthquake Country, a solo exhibition by Echo Park-based artist Rob Sato, featuring a new body of drawings, paintings, and collaborative textile works. Rooted in his daily drawing and dream documentation practice, Sato explores the tension between the chaotic forces that shape our existence and the need for rest and restoration. With a layered interplay of humor, horror, and beauty, the exhibition is both a personal reflection and a broader meditation on the literal and metaphorical tremors that define contemporary life.

Set against the backdrop of his career in illustration and animation, and rocked by tectonic cultural shifts as seen through the window of Echo Park, Los Angeles, his home and creative base for nearly two decades, Earthquake Country is a homecoming for Sato. “Drawing is my main source of play and my main tool for seeing and thinking,” the artist reflects, “This body of work is marked by a period of trying to commune with the world I encounter every day, and to make art more intuitively than ever.” Blending figuration, abstraction, and experimentation, Sato excavates the paradoxes of sleep through dreamy, fragmented compositions that fluctuate between the coexistence of life’s volatile cycles and languor.

Underscoring the importance of grounding in community and place, the exhibition also highlights Sato’s collaborations with local artists, including Subliminal Projects alumni Ako Castuera, multidisciplinary artist Rosie Brand, and natural dye expert Graham Keegan, whose contributions translate Sato’s drawings and paintings into textiles. The interdisciplinary works presented in Earthquake Country are both a reckoning and a release- an invitation to rest, reflect, and reimagine as we shift within spiritual, physical, and cultural unrest. 

ABOUT ROB SATO
Rob Sato is a Los Angeles-based artist and illustrator from Sacramento, CA. He holds a B.F.A. from the California College of Arts & Crafts and creates work that blends intricate detail with surreal storytelling. His art has been exhibited internationally, including at the Japanese American National Museum and the Oakland Museum of California. Sato also works in animation, designing for shows like The Midnight Gospel and Beavis and Butt-Head, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Juxtapoz.

For more information visit robsato.com, and follow him on Instagram @robsato.

PRINT RELEASE: In celebration of Earthquake Country, we’re excited to release a new letterpress print by the artist.

“I try to draw from life and nature as regularly as I’m able. I’m always surprised by what I see. Things are always more visually interesting than I could ever imagine. My approach to life drawing is not driven by style, sales, or the desire to improve as an artist. It’s for looking outwards, for seeing the world with less categorization and judgement and with more humility and curiosity. In much of the work in Earthquake Country, I’ve been trying to convey the simple yet overwhelming feeling I get from tuning into the natural world, that certain universal rhythm that pulses away within it. This print is one of the places this “looking” eventually led to. It’s an image of tranquility and regeneration, of interconnected, living, and life supporting bodies, though this is not utopia. There’s wildness there. It’s quiet but holds the potential for loudness.”– Rob Sato

The print is available online.