About this Event
The Meaning of Life, a solo exhibition by , comprises a selection of significant works, spanning the decades between the 1960s and 1990s. Yoshida is best known for the monumental, almost transcendent works that employ precious metals of gold and silver leaf upon Japanese lacquer and coloured paints on canvas. Highlights include exemplary works on paper from the 60s and 70s, portraying a unique combination of traditional Japanese and European modernist styles. These earlier works reveal Yoshida freely experimenting with colour and form to elaborate the iconic visual language that illuminates his mature canvases.
Conscripted at the age of 19, in 1943, Yoshida was directly assigned to a kamikaze squadron. The traumatic experiences he lived through left Yoshida profoundly conscious of the fragility of life and the overriding proximity of death, an awareness that permeates all the work that followed. Returning to his art after the Japanese surrender following Hiroshima, Yoshida moved to Paris, in the early 60s, to study graphic art techniques at Stanley Hayter’s influential Atelier 17. The works from the 60s and 70s highlight Yoshida’s blossoming to produce innovative etchings using subtle varieties of colour to highlight primary forms on the same plate. These early etchings already show Yoshida exploring metallic effects that lead into the delicate serigraphs and oil and ink on paper works of the 70s. We then see the artist explore the possibilities offered by gold and silver leaf as he moves assuredly towards the captivating multi-panelled works of the 80s and 90s. Here, highly mobile forms reveal the influence of European formalist abstraction while also recalling the irregular forms thatpattern the grounds of traditional Japanese screen painting.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester St, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
