Kenji Yoshida

The October Gallery in Bloomsbury has just opened a small and lovely exhibition of Kenji Yoshida’s paintings. Below is my favourite: large, luscious and luminous…

I love it quite simply because it’s beautiful, and Yoshida does use two techniques that I love to use myself: metal-leaf, and batik-like application of colour. The layering of the paint, very fine here, when seen close up, is delicious. I’ve always loved that about paint, that you can have fun carefully applying and seeing it take on it’s own life at will; and getting really close to a painting so that all in your field of vision are the colours in and out of each other, touching gently or overpowering themselves, bubbling and curdling like planetary surfaces. An experience worth trying, if you never have. Zoom in.

Here is a detail view of another painting, both of these canvases are called La Vie, as are in fact most of the ones in the show, due to the artist having his life spared, ironically, by the bombing of Hiroshima. The subsequent rendition of the Japanese army liberated Yoshida from his conscription to be a kamikaze, and he delved into painting celebrations of life forces. Major events affect us for most of our lives, that’s a known fact. What is interesting is how each individual interprets the trauma and expresses it subsequently. An early painting of mine came about from the horror of understanding what had happened in Hiroshima, after I read John Hersey’s book. I used fluorescent colours, sawdust, and a tangle of wire. And it was the first painting in which I used fire to create colour. At first I tried burning the edges of the wooden support with a lighter (outdoors – of course), but I got nowhere, so I bought a blowtorch which I was very scared to use – for the first 10 minutes. Once I got used to the weapon, the result worked well. Sometime after, I saw that Yves Klein had used burning as a form of painting too. Oh well, we all know everything has been invented already…

Back to Yoshida. I had a juicy conversation with my artist friends Emma and Richard about this exhibition. Emma disagreed with the speaker who had insisted that Yoshida’s work bore only the influence of Japanese traditions. While I realise why Emma sees its point of contact with Abstract Expressionism, her main interest (spot the painter) is in understanding the motivation behind the artist’s impetus. For Emma, it is Yoshida’s passionate aim to celebrate life that becomes the connection with Rothko et al. I believe that movements can appear simultaneously across different parts of the world, with no prior connection, due to some magical zeitgeist at work, and this would explain how the essence of the artist’s endeavour can take on meaning in various cultures. To me, in this case, even the formal aspects of both the Western and the Oriental traditions seem visible, but I have no deep knowledge of Japanese art history or context, so I am prepared to believe that Yoshida’s work comes from his cultural heritage without apparent interference of other artistic explorations. The real joy was in discussing not only the techniques, colour harmonies, and forms (mostly very beautiful) but also the emotional involvement of the artist, and the creative process. Richard delighted me with his wry comment about how curators and art historians talk dryly, whereas artist have much more rich ways of talking about painting. It’s not just the context, after all. It’s the life in the art process. Thank you both for a wonderful afternoon.

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