Takeshi Nakayoshi, MFA

Statement 2019

These paintings are the result of my life searching process for getting to something neither I, nor other people, have ever seen before as a potentiality of color phenomena.

Artists need an original voice, When as a young man, I realized I did not yet have  a such thing. So, from this point on I started from zero to find my own original voice. That was decades ago. I was under Diebenkorn’s influence, attracted to his thin layering upon transparent gestural strokes, which I found myself fascinated by, and thought it was important for the destiny of my future painting. I first combined my investigation with Latin flavored color, since I very much preferred Latin subtle color. My formula was LATIN x ABSTRACT = Takeshi Nakayoshi. 

Then, during this last decade, I thought about who influenced Diebenkorn in a first place, so then studying Matisse became a key to get deeper into discovery of myself. Matisse was influenced by modern art, boiling down to the point of color and form as the essence of the image.  Color of oil paint can extend far beyond our imaginations, as we all witnessed the emergence of Impressionists. As the Impressionists surprised people of that period with their new colors and concept, which were physically altering the concept of color itself, they created a controversy in terms of taste.  It made me think such innovation is possible for altering the concept of reality itself. It signifies emergence of an original new idea.

Another angle of this was searching how to manipulate color, and I was increasingly interested in the viscosity of oil paint, experimenting with different agents to discover different effects, learning to examine what this thick agent does to the physics of color, and consequently effects to the emotion.

When I got to this point which I call UNERISM, uneru, in Japanese means roaring wave, which I felt for the first time in my life, a strong emotional response from myself and rational conviction of what I can deliver. Then I discovered myself for the first time.