Okada Kenzo had studied painting in Paris before the Second World War, and in 1950 he moved to the United States seeking new creative development. At the time Abstract Expressionism was popular in New York, and after various interactions with art world people there, he too began making abstract paintings. Okada’s process was to first tear up sheets of scrap paper like advertising leaflets, creating random shapes that he then pasted onto small mounts. Based on these studies, he would then begin painting larger pictures using thinly mixed, light-colored oils. This painting was made using this technique. Okada, who had been interested in Noh theatre since childhood, named his style of painting, which incorporated traditional Japanese colors, “yugenism,” a compound of the Japanese word yugen meaning “mysterious profundity” and the English suffix –ism.
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)
Okada Kenzo had studied painting in Paris before the Second World War, and in 1950 he moved to the United States seeking new creative development. At the time Abstract Expressionism was popular in New York, and after various interactions with art world people there, he too began making abstract paintings. Okada’s process was to first tear up sheets of scrap paper like advertising leaflets, creating random shapes that he then pasted onto small mounts. Based on these studies, he would then begin painting larger pictures using thinly mixed, light-colored oils. This painting was made using this technique. Okada, who had been interested in Noh theatre since childhood, named his style of painting, which incorporated traditional Japanese colors, “yugenism,” a compound of the Japanese word yugen meaning “mysterious profundity” and the English suffix –ism.
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)