Why Do I Create Paintings?

Tsuyoshi Maekawa

“My painting looks wonderful!” “I want to let people know about this thing that has moved me so much.” These feelings are what makes me create paintings.

Since I was a child, I liked to become immersed in a world of imagination. During World War II we lacked all things. Every night, I took a sheet of paper and a pencil and then got into my futon. Then, lying there, I drew cities of the future. After the war ended, it felt like it had suddenly become a freer world. Abstract paintings seemed like a symbol of this new world, and I was strongly drawn to them.

I eventually developed an interest in design work, and I became a design course student at a high school. Around this time I started showing my paintings at open call modern art exhibitions, and I befriended members of the Gutai Art Association. It is how I joined the world of Gutai Art.

In Gutai an artwork was either “fun” (omoroi) or “nah” (akan). It was a very simple group.

“It must be new.” “It is either a new discovery or a new invention.” The members of Gutai repeated these words. The world began to seem like it had infinite possibilities. “Don’t copy other people.” “This is the world’s first something.” These fearless mottos of Gutai stimulated the young me to no end.

In 1963, in Osaka’s Nakanoshima, Gutai founded an art museum called Gutai Pinacotheca. Like other Gutai artists, I had a solo exhibition there. There was ample exhibition space, so I showed many works, mainly large works, the ones that were size 1000 or size 200. This solo exhibition took place at a time when I was creating numerous works; probably, no other solo exhibition of mine happened during a more prolific period. At the time I did not think that any of my pieces would sell. However, all of them were later collected by art museums around the world. So, none of the works from this period I have in my possession now. In many of these works I used as a material burlap sacks. First, after cutting from the sacks long, narrow pieces, I made the strips into folds. Next, I used an adhesive and fixed the shape that I made. Finally, using house paint and other paints, I colored the shaped material. When Michel Tapié, the French art critic and the initiator of Art Informel, saw these works at my solo show, it was the first time he had seen them. He became extremely excited, and he raved to me about them.

In a review of this solo exhibition, an art critic said the following about my works: “The burlap sacks have been given life. Because of the contrast between them and the colored surfaces, a strong, firm tension exists between these two elements. As a result, the life of the burlap sacks has been elevated—from having a basic primal nature, they have now obtained a composed nobleness. Maekawa has progressively resolved the raw, vulgar texture of the burlap sack, and this feat evinces his dynamic modeling ability.” After Gutai was dissolved I began making works using cloth as the sole material. What and how much can you express without using paint? That was the concept behind my works where I sewed using a sewing machine. The works I created using this method won many awards, including the Grand Prize in a Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan.

About these pieces, when an art critic, a different one from the aforementioned one, wrote about me under the headline “The Mind That Stares at Cloth,” he had this to say: “Rather than painting on the canvas, the artist is possessed by the canvas itself, or by the material of the canvas. He has been using every trick he has in his arsenal to wrangle with cloth.”

I have been creating works for over sixty years now. I think I have concentrated on exploring matter. In particular, I have been persistent about investigating cloth and experimenting with it.

When producing a work, what is most vital to me are that my work is original, I am not copying someone else, I am not being a follower, and my work does not include literary or religious elements. Above all, I must express what I want to express in the language of pure abstraction, a language that uses color, form, and matter.

I firmly believe that each artist must be the originator of his or her style.