Yuko Sakurai
In what is now her eighth solo exhibition at the Japan Art gallery, Yuko Sakurai presents a selection of her latest works on paper and wood, produced between 2024 and 2026. While color effects, color contrasts, and the subtle textures of how she applies the paint undoubtedly play an important role in the visual impact of these works, it is worth noting that Sakurai by no means sees herself as a painter in the traditional sense. She is always concerned with the works as holistic, three-dimensional objects, using the paint – generally oils – as a medium to seamlessly integrate her works into the medium chosen.
Sakurai favors small and medium-sized formats, having no interest in impressing with size and volume. Rather, what is particularly important for her is the intimacy of attentive observation and the resulting empathy with the expressive content of the works. What consistently captivates in Sakurai’s works, therefore, is her precise, loving attention to detail, as well as her transformation of materials into triggers of emotions and moods that most often refer to experiences in specific places at certain times. One example is the enchanting piece “Sun Light Paris I” in which the densely arranged arched motifs in yellow, orange, and red evoke the radiance of sunlight over the city, without being in the least representational. All of Yuko Sakurai’s works speak to her deep connection with nature as well as her appreciation – indeed, her profound respect – for the traditional materials with which she works. This applies, for example, to the hand-made, high-quality, and surprisingly sturdy Echizen paper she uses when working in oil, or the indigo dye she produces herself, with which she colors fabric pieces that are then sewn onto paper. For her unusual, cord-bound, wall-hung objects in the “Kagamino” series, she chose wood from the Japanese cypress, Hinoki. This wood is widely used in Japan, traditionally for temple construction or for crafting masks used in Nō theater. These objects, with their horizontally arranged rods, appear open, delicate, and poetic – especially as they cast colorful reflections onto the wall when illuminated by bright light.
For her vertically oriented works in wood, Yuko Sakurai uses found pieces, scraps from a now-defunct sawmill in the city of Tsuyama, where she was born and lives. The at times irregular shapes of these thin, carefully crafted pieces of wood are exactly as she found them, and she has deliberately left them unchanged. With her application of oil paint, she intends to bring the wood’s unique sensory quality and beauty even more clearly to the fore.
Peter Lodermeyer
