Artist Talk: Akira Yamaguchi in conversation with Tim Clark

Akira Yamaguchi, in his work, borrows spatial and stylistic references of traditional Japanese painting styles yamato-e and ukiyo-e, combining them with elements of modem and contemporary architecture to illustrate episodes of contemporary daily life, for example the hectic life led by salarymen in big cities.

The paintings exhibited at the Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery present a new development within Yamaguchi’s practice, which has been influenced by the Kano school painters of the Muromachi period. Twisting the classical idea of “oil on canvas”, Yamaguchi has added pure linseed oil to his paintings; the shimmer of the oil painted on the canvas evokes the materiality of golden elements used in art forms such as gold paint.

Yamaguchi and Tim Clark, head of the Japanese section in the Asia Department, British Museum, and a specialist in ukiyo-e, discussed the artist’s influences and his attempt to resolve the contradiction of being a painter inheriting the legacy of classical Japanese art, but also trained at art school to follow Western (oil-based) painting techniques.

 

Event part of the exhibition: Resonating Surfaces by Akira Yamaguchi

This exhibition is held in collaboration with Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo

Thumbnail Image; Orbital, Landolt-Ring [detail], 2016, sumi (Japanese ink) , oil on canvas. Photo: OTANI Ichiro ©YAMAGUCHI Akira, Courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery

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