Kumagai Minoru brings modern Japanese landscapes to India

His works in paper feature gold and silver foils as foundational surfaces for paintings in traditional Japanese pigments.

Japanese artist Kumagai Minoru seeks harmony in both texture and nature. Central to the 1941 Kyoto-born artist’s practice is his innovative technique of “Saihaku” that carefully uses gold, silver, coloured and holographic foils as foundational surfaces for paintings in traditional Japanese pigments.

His first solo in India, taking place at Delhi’s Bikaner House till March 1, features 50 works that capture natural light and nature, acting as poetic meditations on interdependence between human existence and the natural world.

Curator Uma Nair notes, “Kumagai reinterprets the traditional landscape through the adoption of modern abstract expressionist techniques woven into Impressionism. While the middle/top ground sometimes outlines a magnificent view of eternal mountains, the background is shrouded in mist, contributing to a new aesthetic perspective that explores a spatial arrangement of both the virtual and the real.”

Commenting on the interplay of colour and his references, Nair adds, “Enriched with woven colours of layering, these compositions take on various gradations of deepened reds, sometimes russets and sometimes moss greens and deep blues as its primary palette, embellished with brushstrokes as well as subtle smudges. Within the small vistas of a sea of colour, the compositions resemble a majestic vision of sunrise above the waters… Kumagai has an internal universe of deep emotions that is embedded within the calligraphic-like

Furthermore, his exposure to many international masters gives him a unique understanding of a masterful use of creating rich layers and textures of modern landscapes, to signify to us a creative fusion of aesthetic values upheld in both the east as well as the west.”

Japanese artist Kumagai Minoru seeks harmony in both texture and nature. Central to the 1941 Kyoto-born artist’s practice is his innovative technique of “Saihaku” that carefully uses gold, silver, coloured and holographic foils as foundational surfaces for paintings in traditional Japanese pigments.

His first solo in India, taking place at Delhi’s Bikaner House till March 1, features 50 works that capture natural light and nature, acting as poetic meditations on interdependence between human existence and the natural world.

Curator Uma Nair notes, “Kumagai reinterprets the traditional landscape through the adoption of modern abstract expressionist techniques woven into Impressionism. While the middle/top ground sometimes outlines a magnificent view of eternal mountains, the background is shrouded in mist, contributing to a new aesthetic perspective that explores a spatial arrangement of both the virtual and the real.”

Commenting on the interplay of colour and his references, Nair adds, “Enriched with woven colours of layering, these compositions take on various gradations of deepened reds, sometimes russets and sometimes moss greens and deep blues as its primary palette, embellished with brushstrokes as well as subtle smudges. Within the small vistas of a sea of colour, the compositions resemble a majestic vision of sunrise above the waters… Kumagai has an internal universe of deep emotions that is embedded within the calligraphic-like

Furthermore, his exposure to many international masters gives him a unique understanding of a masterful use of creating rich layers and textures of modern landscapes, to signify to us a creative fusion of aesthetic values upheld in both the east as well as the west.”