Black and red. And white, if one counts the background — which one must, given the deference with which the artist treats it. Three colours, two of which appear in lines and strokes of different thickness on the third, one used more sparingly than the other.
But it’s the three thin, red lines that captivate. Their brilliance invigorates the entire painting and it’s difficult not to be drawn to the piece in Marjoleine Buker’s apartment in Jumeirah Lakes Towers. It’s clean and simple — a great example of Toko Shinoda blending the sumi ink-painting of traditional calligraphy with abstract expressionism.
Of the red, Shinoda wrote in the catalogue to the exhibition A Lifetime of Accomplishment, organised two years ago to celebrate her 100th birthday, “Sumi and vermillion are the means I’ve selected in the pursuit of my desire to express things that cannot be expressed through realistic depiction.”
That’s what draws people to her work — the expression of what can’t really be expressed.
“Shinoda grows on me,” says Buker, who works for an international asset management firm in Dubai. “Sometimes, as you live with a piece you grow to love it more. Art resembles people in that way.”
The Tolman Collection gallery is considered an expert on contemporary Japanese art and this trailblazing artist whose accomplishments Time magazine once compared to Pablo Picasso’s. “Shinoda is our most popular artist and we have sold 10,000 lithographs and 1,000 originals of her work,” says Norman H. Tolman, founder of the gallery, which has a presence in Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, and regularly attends fairs and exhibitions globally, including in the UAE. “She is still in everyone’s eye. Her paintings and lithographs grace many museums and private collections including the Met and Rockefellers, as well as the collections of the royal families of Japan and Luxembourg.
“She has been painting in the abstract for more than 90 years and at the age of 102 is still able to produce works that move minds.”
Revival of interest
While Japanese buyers dominated the art scene in the early 1990s, the rest of the world is considering Japanese works anew. The UAE is bang on trend, with a number of Japanese artists gracing its shores.
Last month, Dubai’s XVA gallery hosted a very successful exhibition of the skilful pencil artist Shinji Ogawa’s work in collaboration with Nagoya City-based Standing Pine Gallery. At Abu Dhabi Art, Tokyo’s Whitestone Gallery showcased Hiroshi Senju in a solo show dedicated to his large-scale waterfall paintings. Conceptual artist Taro Shinoda will showcase new works at Sharjah Biennial 12, which starts next week, and next month’s Art Dubai will host the works of Ken Matsubara (MA2 Gallery), and Yayoi Kusama and Nobuaki Takekawa (Ota Fine Arts). According to the organisers, the list of artists is not final yet and more could be added.
“Japanese prints are widely admired as works of art, beautifully made, carefully published and popular everywhere. There was a time when Chinese art seemed to take over, but we are noticing a new appreciation from all over the world,” says Tolman.
Anastasia von Seibold, Specialist in Japanese Art at Christie’s London, tells GN Focus the strongest market in the Arabian Gulf for Japanese artworks is fine decorative art from the Meiji era — late 19th to early 20th centuries, representing the first half of the Empire of Japan. “During this period, Japanese craftsmanship reached a pinnacle in terms of quality, skill and attention to detail and the finest cloisonné enamels and metalwork were produced,” she says.
“Enamels by famous names such as Namikawa Yasuyuki, characterised by intricate designs with highly polished surfaces, can command strong prices at auctions. Metalwork can be in solid gold or silver, or bronze with intricate inlays in gold and silver. Meiji period works of art are much sought-after with established collectors all over the world.”
Von Seibold adds that interest in Japanese textiles is usually in Noh costumes, associated with the samurai class. “In performance, Noh’s [a traditional form of dance drama dating back to the 14th century] austere stage and the severe elegance of its powerful masks combine with the multiple layers of shimmering costume to give the actor an oversized sculptural presence as he moves with the music and chanting of the chorus.”
That said, Christie’s has noticed a renewed interest in embroidered textiles from the Meiji period since Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum held the exhibition Threads of Silk and Gold in 2012-13.
This year sees the celebration of 400 years of the Rinpa school (also called Rimpa), a prestigious historical style of Japanese painting. Keiji Yamada, Governor, Kyoto Prefecture, said in a statement, “Despite being a place of tradition that boasts a long history, Kyoto has never stopped trying new things and creating a new culture, and it is this culture that continues to represent Japan and be attractive to so many people.
“Rimpa is simultaneously both a revolution in Japanese art that could only have been born in Kyoto and an art form that has itself deeply influenced Kyoto’s traditional industries and other crafts. Its influence can also be felt in modern art and design.”
That spirit will be transported to Dubai with the launch of the Kyoto Art Gallery at the Palm Strip Mall, which, when it opens as expected in April, will have a strong presence of this highly decorative style. Created in the 17th century by Honami Koetsu and Tawaraya Sotatsu, it embodies the revival of classical courtly traditions and Yamato-e painting.
Delicate beauty
Buker says she’s attracted to the clean lines and simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic, although her informal collection includes pieces by the more decorative Clifton Karhu, an American who settled in Japan and took up traditional woodblock printing. He’s one of the most successful contemporary Western artists working in this style.
Buker first encountered the artist, whose work has been described (somewhat negatively) as an American perspective on Japan, in a gallery her mother, Anneke Buker-Wirl, owned in Dubai. “I saw it and fell in love with it immediately,” she says. “It grabbed me straight away.”
Now closed, Buker-Wirl says the gallery came about by accident. “I started as a collector around 1990. I never intended to own a gallery, because my interest was merely in buying for myself.
“I started acquiring pieces of antique furniture and objets d’art for the purpose of exhibiting and selling about twice a year and then, because of a very positive response from a number of buyers, I started a small, exclusive gallery in 2000 that did very well.”
Buker-Wirl, who has since relocated back to Europe, says the most expensive piece she has handled was a Negoro lacquerware travelling chest of drawers, which went for about £25,000 (about Dh140,905). Artists always on her radar include Shigeki Kuroda, Ryohei Tanaka and Katsunori Hamanishi. Her daughter loves the mezzotints in Hamanishi’s kimonos, as well as Ray Morimura and Hiromitsu Takahashi’s kappazuri prints.
On the other end of the spectrum, Dubai-based Japanese illustrator Masa Taro creates more whimsical, cartoonish figures that grace everything from T-shirts to stationery. “My style is to always incorporate a positive concept to make people happy,” he says, adding that, “Japanese art is popular because of a sense of balance, an obsessiveness with details.”
And that rings true across the board — in stark abstract pieces as well as in the overtly decorative.
