Texts List

The object to be painted is close at hand; as if at this distance the artist could seize the object if he reached out his hands. Therefore artists, especially painters, have to always train their arm muscles. Once you can manoeuvre your arms freely, then you have to concentrate on your hands. Turn your fists up and pull all your muscles inward quietly. Because what you are about to scoop up is forever changing in form and hard to grasp. 

 
——Like water？

 
Not quite.

 
——Like light, then？

 
You are getting closer. I saw light at my first sight of this world, at the moment of my birth, and I will be enveloped in the same light again at my death. I perceive light in utter darkness and also recognise darkness in dazzling light. This darkness is never only something frightening. It is filled with a tranquil calm; it is the truth emanating from my memories of the unseen.  

 
——Memories of the unseen. Sounds like Roland Barthes in India.

 
The universe is expanding too. All the stars are flying away from each other, rushing to a million light-year solitude. That is why 'painting' exists. The world is indeed in need of a gravity to bring together dispersing objects. An inclination to go outward can only be balanced by a will to go inward. What is always important is the delicate balance between those two. 

 
l am always longing to transcend my emotions, anguish and anxiety to reach another state of mind. In painting, I feel, a strange kind of faith exists, which unifies all the elements; and, through the tenacious act of searching for the object's colour and form, you come to quiver with an excitement from reaching deep into yourself.

 
——It is like an encounter between the surface and underside....Like paint gradually seeping through to create indescribable depth. 

 
Yes, exactly like that. You understand precisely. The kind of aesthetic never to be found in the West. Because it is an abstract universe where this world and the other world become one. In order to unify the outside world and one's spirit, it is necessary to have a meditative 'sakui' (creative artifice) that is something only artists can possess. This is an ingenious creative device which we can only gain through training our hands repeatedly, every day, without growing weary. l understand 'sakui' to be a rare realm, where, through combing the artist's own spirituality and technical ability (gained through experience), the artist's ego transcends to a higher purity. 

 
The painter goes on telling his story slowly and relaxedly, but with conviction. Yoshito Takahashi was born in Tokyo In 1954. As a citizen of Tokyo, he is possibly one of its rootless and slightly lonely individuals. This background might have led him to his quest for painting, as it were, contemporary ascetic circumstances. When he started at art college, Takahashi chose, presumably without any hesitation, a school of painting that today tends to be regarded as a typical anachronism. If he had been an ordinary student, that would have been that. But I presume that the situation was slightly different in his case. Even as he began his career as an artist, he seems to have been caught up with the fundamental issues. It was all too obvious that he was searching for the secret of the painting's formation .

 
Painting is an enigma; it relies heavily on métier (handcraft skills), yet it transcends métier. Unceasingly aspiring to zero, mu-sakui (non creative artifice) which is seen beyond sakui and sometimes unseen behind it. The boldness of completely ignoring the visual sense, while also depending on it. A rigorous rivalry between hands and eyes. They are all inscrutable themes confined in an old-fashioned plane called painting. Paul Cézanne, on one hand, a hundred some years ago, exploited the geometrical analysis of nature. Takahashi's weapon, on the other, may, for example, be the tension caused by the dichotomy of opposites. In the 1980s, the artist started dripping acrylic paint on to coated concrete slabs, and scraping the drips off again with washi paper. This was a method unique to him. l think that through this rather indirect method of creation, Takahashi Yoshito matured to a great degree as a painter.

 
An inclination to go inside of the paper (picture) —— an inclination to go beyond and outside of the paper (picture) 
     In fact, Kumohada-mashi, the washi paper the artist uses, was painted on both sides, the surface and underside. The will is uplifted through 
         the encounter with the unexpected resistance of the anti-will. In works such as Series - Drops of Moisture in the Wind (Kaze no Shizuku) 
             work'87-B4 (1987), macro nature and micro nature are skilfully captured in these mysterious procedures. 
         An abstract inclination to go inside of, not just the paper, but the formation (production) of painting itself —— a figurative inclination to 
              escape from and go outside of the formation (production) of painting.
                  The painter's works have often been interpreted as realistic depictions of water falling down over a rocky surface. Some went further 
                       seeing the passing of the seasons. Seeing works such as work '92-B1 (1992), however, can one really say that it is an obviously 
                           figurative view of water falling over a rocky surface? 
                       An inclination to go inside of spirit —— An inclination to resist and go outside of spirit. 
                           To paint is life itself for a painter, yet it has almost nothing to do with the daily round of living in that it is the activity most 
                                detached from it. The clash between these two contentions creates the tensions wherein his art is secretly positioned. 

 

 
In 1991, Yoshito Takahashi was the first Japanese artist to sign up with Garner Tullis, whose workshop has been prominent and favoured by artists including Sam Francis and Catherine Lee. In his spacious workshop, Takahashi was challenged and gained an opportunity to create enormous monotypes (a type of print that has only one edition) using metal plates. His creative methods broadened greatly from this period onwards. Moving on from just patiently pressing and rubbing paints onto the pictures, he turned to striking, stroking, scratching, scrubbing, grinding, dropping, sprinkling, pouring, blowing, spraying, splashing, or using patches of solid colour. As well as acrylic paints, he extended the materials used to include oil paints, mineral paints, Chinese ink, and even ceramic clay. He described them as 'mixed media', an appropriate term for a contemporary art form. 

 
——What effects do you pursue when you create paintings？

 
In 'painting', particular effects are certainly recognisable; but they are not métier that can be acquired simply by developing the ability to draw. It is more about seeking an effect that is not intending to create any effect. Since Cézanne painted Saint Victoire with his idiosyncratic divisional method, modern and contemporary 'paintings' have been the subject of much research into human perception itself. Today even the issue of surfaces may be viewed on a new horizon. 

 
It is stating the obvious, but necessary to emphasise, that thought processes must proceed simultaneously with the act of creation. There are traces of both thought processes and métier in the works. Attachment to brush marks: partiality for brushstrokes: interchange of foreground and background: consistent attitudes to seeking the core of 'painting' in which you reach nothingness through painting over and over again. You should not forget this: even for painters 'painting' is not necessarily an easily accessible world. 

  
——You are so contemplative. The landscape echoes in Yoshito Takahashi, gains body and personality and starts to talk about itself. The painter embraces the landscape, objectifies it, projects it, and throws it on the washi paper. When the artist and landscape become so intimate, they create a world of their own. Nobody else can share this. 

 
That's why I have been working all hours of the day. Since 1995, I have stopped using concrete plates, and have gone back to the basic processes of painting. l want to quietly contemplate the mechanism of landscape (painting), by abandoning the divisions of East and West that have for so long been restricting our history: and by transcending the one way flow of time. It is not easy to explain something complicated in a simple way, and that is not the job of a painter. But the painting is a precious existence somehow connecting all factors together. That is 'painting' for me. The act of making oneself clear, with all one's might, may well be one's own message in the end. The painter is quite an optimistic idealist. This story will probably continue, without interruption, for as long as life lasts. 

 
The dialogue with the painter, which cannot be expressed in words, grows quieter and quieter and yet increasingly enthusiastic. The creak of time has stopped. The bluebells beside the window, abundant in the vase, are glowing with their beautiful pale purple colour.