Exposition Art Blog: Japanese art

Showing posts with label Japanese art. Show all posts

Sadamasa Motonaga - Gutai Group

Sadamasa Motonaga (Japanese, 1922–2011) was a Japanese abstract painter and a founding member of the avant-garde Gutai group. He was born on November 26, 1922 in Mie Prefecture, Japan and initially sought to be a cartoonist before turning his attention to painting, studying under the tutelage of Jiro Yoshihara. A pronounced sense of humor remained in his work throughout his lengthy career, creating paintings which are characterized by simple lines and a gentle palette of muted primary colors. Motonaga gradually expanded his practice to include printmaking, stage design, and children’s books, all while continuing his ongoing elliptical investigation into abstract painting. His awards include the Légion d’Honneur from the French government and the Japanese Purple Ribbon Award; he was the first abstract artist to receive the latter. He died on October 3, 2011 in Kobe, Japan, and his work has been the subject of many retrospectives, including at Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kobe in 1998, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in 2003, and the Mie Prefectural Museum of Art in 2009. The first Western retrospective of his work was held at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2014.(artnet.com)

Masayuki Nagare - Japanese art

Masayuki Nagare ( February 14, 1923 – July 7, 2018) was a modernist Japanese sculptor, nicknamed "Samurai Artist" for his commitment to traditional Japanese aesthetics. He was born in 1923 in Nagasaki to Kojuro Nakagawa, the founder and president of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. As a teenager, he received training in the martial arts of a samurai, particularly swordsmanship,and lived in several temples in Kyoto, where he observed the patterns of rocks, plants, and water created by traditional landscape artists. In 1942, he enrolled at Ritsumeikan University, where he studied Shintoism and was apprenticed to a master swordsmith. He left university in 1943 to join the Imperial Japanese Navy and did not return to complete his studies. Nagare served as a Zero Fighter pilot in the Pacific War. After the War, he traveled all over Honshu Island until the mid-1950s, witnessing the desolation of the ruined countryside, developing a thorough understanding of the Japanese landscape, and becoming interested in local crafts such as pottery. His fascination with graveyard tombstones that had survived wartime bombing led to his longtime choice of stone as his preferred medium.Nagare's art is strongly influenced by Shintoism, Zen Buddhism, and traditional Japanese martial arts. His principal stone-carving techniques include warehada ("cracked skin" or "broken texture"), in which the surface is left rough, with visible chisel marks, and shinogi awase ("ridges joined together"), which describes the meeting of two highly polished surfaces. Some of his works exhibit the contrast between the two techniques. His sculptures' clean lines often follow the subtle curvature of Japanese swords.Wikipedia

Takesada Matsutani

Takesada Matsutani is a Japanese, contemporary, mixed-media artist born on January 1, 1937 in Osaka, Japan. He is a member of the Gutai group since 1963. His well-known work involves a technique of blowing a gust of air into a puddle of vinyl wood glue, creating bulges, bubbles, and drips. He was inspired by the way the glue dried, using it as his ideal medium for many of his works.
These natural formations were a constant inspiration throughout most of his artwork thereafter. He is also known for his large, colorful, geometric pieces made using oil and acrylic on canvas.
Later in his career, Matsutani began eliminating the use of color, and alongside the wood glue, started incorporating the use of graphite into his pieces.