- Yasuki Masako paints the breath of the earth submerged beneath the modern world.
- Nagahiro Kinoshita (History of Thoughts and Modern Art)
Within certain acts, not only of humans but of all beings in the natural world, an invisible countermovement* is at work in the accomplishment of tasks. In human endeavors, this countermovement is like breath.
Take calligraphy, for example. Consider the bold exertion entailed in writing with considered exactitude even the simplest of Japanese characters, one: ‘一’. The arm, usually the right arm, assertively moves from left to right to complete the ideograph. Yet while moving in this way, a countermovement is also invisibly at work, an equal and opposite force against the surface action of the brushstroke, an inhalation with every exhalation, which when properly understood and harnessed enables the calligrapher to accomplish the form with linear beauty.
Consider now the case of European painting. Until the late-19th century, artists concentrated on directly representing the surface beauty of things as they caught the eye. Their inner workings − countermovement such as ontological beauty and truth, the elements for anti-representation or abstract art − remained hidden. It was not until the 20th century that artists awakened and found in diverse colors, lines and forms the opposing force required to create paintings that expressed anti-representative or abstract movements.
Born of the late-20th, Yasuki Masako is an artist driving forward into the 21st century. In her paintings we see the synthesis of movement with countermovement in regard to the representation versus abstraction and symbolization that occurred in the last century. Like the calligrapher's ink brush, for which movement and countermovement in concert afford an ideograph its beauty of form, Yasuki's paintbrush accomplishes the expression of multiple planes of truth. On and in every painting we see the inside and outside of phenomena, the surface and underside of things.
Yasuki Masako, then, does not just present images; neither is she satisfied with mere symbols. Rather, she reconstructs images in such a way that her work becomes a metaphor for painting itself. In her reconstructions of nature, the megalopolis, and acts of humanity distilled to their trembling quintessence, we can say her paintings reconstruct the very breath of the earth.
In pursuit of her aims, Yasuki combines ancient Western methods and materials like tempera with the traditional technique of Eastern painting, tenpo ( 点法 ), and materials likes Japanese gold leaf (kinpaku, 金箔 ). Her works in gold leaf , for instance, appear like the lapis lazuli of the Western medieval period. In the moment we become cognizant of blendings such as this, we feel the boundaries established by the modern age quiver and fall away.
For our small, limited brains, the world is seen as always changing at a dizzying pace. Yet beyond the edifice of modernity is buried deep a vast and silent world of timeless states that must be acknowledged.
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* The word ‘counter’ is here used with a nuance suggested by Lao-Tzu's statement,‘the Counter is the motive of Tao (i.e. the Way).’