HISASHI INDO WAS a japanese painter of the early 20th century whose artworks fall under the categories of abstract art, conceptualism and minimalism. for better understanding, i’ll provide definitions for all three:
ABSTRACT ART: an art form that doesn’t use subjects or references, but instead utilises colours, shapes and lines to create a piece separate from things within ‘visual reality’.
CONCEPTUAL ART: an art form in which the ‘concept’ or idea behind the piece is more important than its visuals — kind of like the artistic embodiment of ‘the journey is worth more than the end goal’.
MINIMALISM: an art form that is focused on revealing the ‘essence’ of the subject by eliminating ‘non-essential’ items; the belief that art should create an independent reality, rather than imitating the outside world.
to me, hisashi is very intriguing and unique artist. he’d take years to complete pieces because he’d paint a layer, wait for it to dry, polish it and then repeat the same process continuously, choking the canvas in colour until textured lines would form on its surface.
hisashi grew up in rural hokkaido, an island in the north of japan. when he visited tokyo for the first time in 1956, he was taken aback by the stark contrast to his home, and the post-war modernisation tokyo had undergone. his works became more abstract over time, until they were monochromatic masterpieces, that seemed to tell a story about ‘the inner path of human life’.
i’d been mulling over what exactly it was about hisashi and his works that had attracted me in the first place. his works mesmerise me and i’ve been a fan of his for a long time, but the enigmatic nature of his pieces make it difficult to find the words to say. so much can be implied in his works, so many concepts can be explored. in the end, i decided to talk about how his artwork is representative of the self, specifically how we can see ourselves in his pieces.
human beings are ever changing — both mentally and physically. for example, every 6–10 years, every single cell in our bodies are replaced by new ones. we are literally not the same person we were a few years ago. we are endlessly, perpetually, undergoing rebirth.
as our cells ‘paint’ over the people we once were, submerging our previous selves under a new coat, and as our mindsets shift, leaving old world-views buried in broken fragments, we become almost unrecognisable to others. they approach us in surprise, telling us how much we’ve ‘changed’. and as for ourselves, in our renaissance, we leave behind inaccessible memories; layers of paint we’ll never see again unless we desperately claw at the surface and cut into the very core of ourselves, trying and pry open our subconscious minds (an impossible task).
the buried coats of paint, now invisible, signify experiences long forgotten. the multiplex of layers convey how complicated and elaborate we are. and with age, when those layers begin to show themselves in those textured lines, when wrinkles start to form on our skin, we remember our old days with the memories that managed to protrude despite our constant revivals. hisashi painted us in the most minimalistic way, and yet he captured us perfectly: beautiful and intricate.
hisashi also favoured purple in his artworks. a colour associated with mystery, spirituality and the subconscious. a colour that is perfect to describe rebirth and the complexity of human beings.
as the multitude of layers causes the purple to fade to black; as we slowly but surely meet the inevitable, the veins of memories on the surface of our skin tell the stories of our lives.
