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Echo of the Eye - Japanese artist Keiji Shinohara
Arts & Activities, Sept, 2001 by Tara Cady Sartorius
Everything that happens sends reverberations throughout the universe. That goes for cosmic phenomena, earthbound natural events and animal actions. Some of those things are big, and some small. We may notice, but we also might not. They might happen silently in the night, and other times right as we look on.
We might wake up one morning and the world is blanketed with snow. We turn around and our children have grown up; our parents have grown old. We revisit our childhood home and suddenly it seems so small. All these things happen without fanfare or announcement, they just happen. They don't ask if we want them to, we have no choice, no vote and no say. Such is the nature of nature.
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Observing nature one day in late fall, artist Keiji (CAGE-ee) Shinohara (SHE-no-HA-ra) might have seen a tree losing the last remnants of its leaves. They silently dropped to a pool of water, spreading concentric circles from where they touched the surface. Through the water he could see layers of other leaves that had earlier sunk to the bottom, arranging themselves in shaded and mottled patterns of burnt umber and sienna. The entire process was silent. Nature was transforming in a noiseless but closely impressive drama. It was the memory and feeling of such a moment that caused the piece (seen at left) Silence, to be created.
Shinohara's work consistently bridges the gap between traditional and contemporary art. He was born, grew up, and attended college in Osaka, Japan. He served a printmaking apprenticeship for almost 10 years in Kyoto, and then moved to the United States in 1985, at age 30. Shinohara has worked for the past 16 years building his career and developing artistic, professional and academic contacts. He currently teaches at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. His art melds two cultures, even to a literal extent, through his collaborative works with contemporary American artists such as Robert Stackhouse and Chuck Close.
Shinohara spent his 20s as an apprentice to Uesugi Keiichiro, a renowned contemporary ukiyo-e printer in Kyoto, Japan. Uesugi almost turned Shinohara away because Shinohara was left-handed and the registration (accurate lining up of multiple colors) system of ukiyo-e is geared for right-handed people. Shinohara learned to print with his right hand, and persisted to become a master printmaker.
Silence is printed from 14 blocks, and yet is not a traditional Japanese print. Shinohara's divergence from traditional techniques comes in several forms. First of all, he personally does all the steps in making a print, rather than relegating himself to one part of the process or another. He adds unusual materials or effects to his image and has even developed a resist technique using Krazy[R] Glue.
The four tripartite leaves on the surface of Silence are bold and bright. A shiny glaze of hide glue printed on parts of their surfaces emphasizes their intense reds. Their veins appear pen-inked with sharp precision, bringing them into focus and even closer to the viewer, but they are actually printed from carved cherry wood, which is very hard and can print fine lines. The ripples are made by printing arcs of thinned glue, which are then coated with a delicate mixture of mica dust and gray pigment.
Silence is the "BAT" print for an edition of 30. "BAT" stands for the French Bona Tirer (literally "good to pull"), meaning the print is ready to be editioned. There can be many prints called artist's proofs, but only one BAT, which is why Silence does not carry a designation such as 1/30 or' 2/30. Shinohara did not write "BAT" on this piece because he wanted to avoid adding too many words.
While his work is certainly a hybrid of materials, culture and meaning, at the root of many of Shinohara's compositions is a Japanese aesthetic: a concern for nature and an understated elegance, simultaneously simple and complicated.
Through the use of transparent and partially opaque inks, and the layering of subtle patterns and color gradations, Shinohara has created an intimate work of great depth on a variety of levels. He begins way below the surface with tones of red brick and iron oxide. Next, thin shadows of leaves are built up in increasingly darker shades.
If a pool of water can be said to have atmosphere, then this layering effect could be called atmospheric perspective. Finally, the red leaves and their ripples sit upon the surface of the work. We can choose to focus on the action at the top or delve into the murky depths of undisturbed water. This detail of nature, this closely considered square foot of turf, offers as many opportunities for reflection as the most breathtaking landscape seen from a distance.
The bright leaves have detached from the tree. They make their new place in the world, much as Shinohara has left Japan, taking up residence in the United States. For him, leaving Japan was a process of personal decisions and circumstances; for the leaves it was the forces of nature. Perhaps there is little difference. There is something sad when realizing we can never go back, and never go home.
