Untitled

Trained in Japanese brush painting (nihonga at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Tadaaki Kuwayama arrived in the United States in 1958. He began working in Minimalism and abstraction, developing a unique technique of monochrome painting by mixing acrylic colors with mineral pigments used in traditional Japanese painting. Untitled is a striking example from Kuwayama’s early career that challenges perception and the language of color. Composed of twelve rectangular panels of descending height arranged symmetrically from the center, the work is sprayed evenly with acrylic. Alternating between metallic pink and yellow from panel to panel, each canvas is also framed by gray-painted and aluminum strips. Because of the challenge to properly identify the subtly different painted colors, the viewer becomes hypersensitive to their own cognitive process in relation to the conditions in an installation space, from the lighting to wall texture and color, position, and other factors. The deliberate neutrality of the palette and the insistence on the viewer’s perception remained defining features of Kuwayama’s work.