Blazing Painting

Toru Kuwakubo's composiitions are built of thick but delicate layers of unmixed oil colour, evocative of the seascapes of Vincent Van Gogh. Through adopting Impressionist influenced painting techniques, Kuwakubo blends his elements from his imagination into the seascape Blazing Painting (Lot 185) depicts despondency through many of canvases shown in the fiery seascape. Following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the sea became Kuwakubo's primary subject matter. The devastating tsunami in the Iwate and Miyagi prefectures deeply affected his relationship with painting. He used to reflect his personal life in his work, however, after enduring this horrific natural disaster he began to create a distance between himself and his painting. Kuwakubo often questions the notion of artistic practice through his work. He began his career by performing the role of an Impressionist painter.

Kuwakubo would situate his canvas on an easel by the seashore, painting the seascape in front of him like the famous Impressionist painter Claude Monet. He would then carry the freshly painted canvas and his easel on his back. He intentionally created an imaginative persona and signed the canvas as Kuwoud Bonet (an anagram of his own name) thus performing the cliché role of an artist.