Takashi Murakami

October 2, 2020

Takashi Murakami is a famous Japanese artist. He obtained his BA, MFA and PhD at the Tokyo University of the Arts. His major area was nihonga (Japanese traditional paintings). He established the Hiropan Factory, a studio/workshop in 1996. This studio later grew into Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd.

Takashi Murakami’s work centered around pop culture, especially the Japanese one. His early works like Miss Ko (1997), Hiropan (1997) and My Lonesome Cowboy (1998) are anime-like sculptures. Meanwhile, he also created Mr. DOB, smiling flowers, bears, and lions which incorporates features of popular cartoon in Japan, US and Europe. With his Superflat movement, he stressed “flatness” in Japanese visual culture. Japanese woodblock prints, anime and kawaii are important elements of his artworks under this movement. He is an all-round artist, who is able to create works with different materials and who can breakthrough the boundary between fine art and commercial art.

Though he recently announced that he had to end his second film Jellyfish Eyes Part 2: Mahashankh as his company is facing bankruptcy, I thought he would be able to overcome this with his passion and his comprehensive and rigorous way of preparing artwork.

Frida Khalo (1907 - 1954)

September 25, 2020

I have a habit of looking around at the fine art section in book shops. One day a book cover caught my eyes. It showed a portrait of a woman with unibrow and her dark hair tied up. She looked bold. Below her face were two big words, Frida Khalo. The portrait looked exotic to me. I was curious about who Frida Kahlo was, what she did and what her art looked like.

After browsing several websites (see links below), I learnt that Frida Khalo was a self-taught Mexican painter borne in 1907. Her father was a German and her mother was a Mexican. Her life was not easy. She suffered from polio when she was just 6 years old. Because of this disease, she needed to stay in her bed for nine months. When she was eighteen, she almost died in a bus accident. Her spine, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, foot and shoulder were all injured. She needed to lay in a plaster body cast. Even when she could return home, she had to have complete bed rest. The recovery process was as long as around three years. This is the period when she began to paint. She was later married to Diego Rivera, an artist and a womanizer. Though she longed for babies, she experienced miscarriage and could not have a child of her and her beloved husband. She was heart broken when her husband had an affair with her own sister. She divorced, but remarried Diego one year later. And she died at age 47.

Her work is not like Edward Hopper’s realist painting. Frida’s work is representational yet dreamy. Perhaps this is why André Breton called Frida a surrealist. Frida, however, denied this label because she was painting her reality and not dreams. It is true. Frida’s paintings are like a photo album of her life, recording important events and her feelings throughout her life. The Broken Column records her feelings after her surgery on her spinal column. Henry Ford Hospital is associated with her miscarriage. Memory, the Heart and The Two Fridas describe her heart-broken feelings towards her husband’s affair and divorce.

Among Frida’s hundreds of works, I found The Broken Column most unforgettable. In this painting, Frida’s spinal column is broken but she stands straight, probably with the help of the metallic closet. Her body is covered with nails of different sizes, signaling the pain. Though tears appear around Frida’s face, her expression does not show sadness. The painter might want to convey the message that she could cope with the pain with her strong will. This painting touches me as I have similar experience. My back was slightly injured in a mild car accident. I needed bed rest for few months. I could imagine hundred times or thousand times of physical and emotional pain Frida experienced. I admired how she coped with her injury and attempted to live strongly.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967)

September 18, 2020

Who is your favourite artist? Mine is Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper was born in 1882 in Upper Nyack, New York. Hopper was raised in a comfortable environment. A part of it included exposure to arts through museum visits and cultural events. Hopper was a good student at school. He showed his talent on drawing as early as age five. His parents were supportive to his art development. This allowed him to enter the New York School of Art and Design later in life. He initially worked on illustration. But he later realized that he did not like it. Through several trips to Europe (mainly to Paris), he began to create his own art. Like many artists, he went through years of struggle when he needed to do commercial art to support himself and when he desperately searched for his own style in his artwork. His breakthrough came along with his re-encounter of Josephine Nivison, a classmate at the New York School of Art and Design. Jo was working as an artist and she helped Edward exhibit his work at Brooklyn museum. After marrying Hopper, Jo continued to support her husband in different ways, including posing for Hopper’s paintings. And Edward Hopper eventually became one of the great American realist whose work is largely about loneliness and anxiety in urban settings.

Edward Hopper was an artist who worked slowly. He planned carefully and attended to every detail in his work. He mentioned that he tended to think for a long time on his work and only when he was all right would he go to the easel. Looking at his sketches allow you to have a glimpse of the artist’s mind. I found it interesting to look at his sketches. Some of them look like a storyboard. Others show careful planning on composition, color and light arrangement. I remembered that I once saw a sketch on his work Morning Sun. The sketch shows a sitting woman with marks noting how much light is on each part of the body. I was amazed by how he decided the amount of light on the woman’s body. This inspired me in my preparation of my own work too.

In addition to his way of working, I am also drawn to his way of depicting light. The very first painting I got to know Edward Hopper is Nighthawks. The lighting arrangement forms a big contrast on the space inside and outside the restaurant. With the bright light in the restaurant, one can see how people are wearied and disconnected. When I looked more closely at the painting, I noticed different geometric shapes form the space outside the restaurant. Among these geometric shapes, I found the angular shadow most interesting. I learnt that the mix of light and shadow is caused by multiple sources of light. Some come from several light bulbs in the restaurant, others are from streetlights. One could see how strong Edward Hopper was in dealing with light and shadow.

Scholastica Lam

Scholastica Lam

Takashi Murakami

Frida Khalo (1907 - 1954)

Edward Hopper (1882-1967)