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Artwork Description

Masanori Maeda (b. 1964 –) graduated as Head of the Class at the most prestigious art university in Japan, The Tokyo University of the Arts, and received the coveted Ataka Prize, which often propels artists on a path to stardom. This was not the case for Maeda. With exceptional technique yet without a clear conception of what he wished to express through painting, Maeda soon drifted to obscurity. Yet in the past few years Maeda has reemerged with a focus on abstraction, a style of painting that he had always wished to paint, inspired by the simplicity and naturalism of the Mono-ha movement. Maeda’s paintings are inspired by the abstract pine trees of the legendary medieval Japanese painter Hasegawa Tohaku, his brushstrokes revealing hints of tension that leave behind a sparse emptiness that fills an ominous, looming presence of what lies beyond. To paint or not to paint what can and cannot be seen – it is this duality of Tohaku that Japanese painter Masanori Maeda endeavours to capture, while also being inspired by the simple forms and strokes of the Mono-ha movement of the 1980’s. His symbols often point to the juxtaposition between life and death, pain and happiness, and other elements that, once forgotten, can lead one to another state of existence that transcends the 2-dimensional, to a realm of serenity and utter calm and “emptiness.” Yet what differs between this latest series, “Area of Colors”, and his previous “both forgotten” series are the discarding of simple colour field lines of symmetry for that of more random fields of colour placed in tandem on a field of white. Rather than constricting himself to linear boundaries of prayer, instead Maeda finds depth within bursts of colour, painting meticulously within each geometric form with the same painstaking brushstrokes of his previous works but in focused parameters that help to symbolize different emotions and philosophies within prayer itself. In fact, these colours are painted upon cut-out shapes of aluminum leaf, whereas the white field is painted using “gofun” seashell powder upon Japanese paper, so that the colours themselves are accentuated further in contrast to the softness of white. Maeda’s romantic idealism has been realised in full, representing thus an emergence of a new approach to Japanese painting for the 21st century.