I know Kentaro from the Art Students League, definitely check out his upcoming exhibit at Local Project in Long Island City opening on Dec. 6th.

Kentaro Fujioka / Untitled / Kentaro Fujioka / Acrylic, paper and burlap on canvas / 56 by 50 inches / 2007  / kentarofujioka.com

In this series Colors in Destruction, I’m most interested in the tension between ‘Destruction’ and ‘Construction.’ Everything is impermanent. There is the effort I make in constructing something; there is also beauty in destroying it.

Beauty appears where there is a lot of energy, no matter whether it is from something negative or positive. I have discarded the idea that destruction is negative. In fact, the act of destruction is the main method of my working on this series. Destruction simply cuts through dimensions and time. It reveals the relationship between colors which have been applied in different times and contexts. It does destroy the relationship in the present composition, but it discovers other possibilities of existence.

In the process of my work, the act of ‘Destruction’ entails the act of ‘Construction’. I start my painting with stretching raw canvas on the stretcher, then I stain the canvas and prime it. After the base structure is made, I repeat the process of layering on the surface with paint, strips of wood, paper and fabric. The choice of the color and the order is carefully made, not so much by planning, but rather by intuitive selection after a long observation on the recorded images of the previous state. The stronger the wood or paper or fabric is applied on the canvas, the higher the tension between layers becomes, it makes the effect of the torn surface more interesting. After days or sometimes weeks of layering, I intuitively stop layering. (the number of layers depends on the process of each painting, usually 20 to 30.) Then I start tearing off. This is also an intuitive process. Some part of the layers is left, while most is removed. This act of tearing off is an essential part in the process. It reveals the layers underneath, exposing colors which have been applied previously in another composition. It makes the process far more complicated so the result would never be anything I expect. Occasionally I find that I have to get rid of the canvas entirely by completely destroying it. {Read More…}

Makoto Fujimura / Mountain Memoir – Columbine / 12 x 12 inches / gold and mineral pigments on paper / Dillon Gallery

I’ve been lazy on my posts lately and I’ll blame it on the holiday and the hot summer weather.  Before I left town for a couple of days last week, I got down to Dillon Gallery and saw a great show of Makoto Fujimura paintings. The work is a visual feast. Shimmering sparkling pigments, gold, platinum and silver leaf create rich decadent colors and surfaces. Looking at these paintings I could really appreciate fine hand-ground pigments. It adds an energy or visual interest that can’t be obtained with tube paint off the shelf. With tube paint the pigment is mechanically ground to such a fine powder and mulled to such an even consistency that you don’t see individual pieces of pigment. These suspensions, especially in oil, acrylic or latex are great for painting flat even coats of paint that read as fields of color.  However, when pigments are hand ground, there is an inconsistency in the sizes of the particles of pigment. There are fine powdery pieces and bigger chunkier flecks. When they are applied to the canvas, they catch and reflect the light differently. It is a subtle difference, but the overall effect on the life of the painting is huge.

In Fujimura’s paintings, the effect is accentuated as the grind of the pigments is very course is some cases and almost has the texture of sand. As you stand in front of a piece and shift your position, the light reflecting off the pigments shimmers and the surface feels alive and moving. Unfortunately, you can’t see this difference in photos on the web

Makoto Fujimura @ Dillon Gallery, 555 West 25th St., through August 2nd.