Tadanori Yokoo (1936-)

Fascinating graphism and painting.

Tadanori Yokoo started out as a graphic designer, and his training shows in his later paintings. In his work on posters (see e.g. la boite a images for some images of posters), he demonstrates amazing skill in working with complex backgrounds, gems of composition on their own, to render the images in the foreground even more lively. The often simple symbolism of graphic design also influenced his choice of themes and icons in his paintings, of which his more mature red series is most impressive. Death, life, heaven, hell, and lonely cats fit well into his landscapes of the soul that are vast, confusing and full of dynamism. His use of colour, which is subtle, and limited, as well as his eye for the right scale of the patterns that he sprinkles over his tableaus show his superb instinct for composition and equilibrium. The smaller patterns blow life into the huge paintings, like fallen leaves swirling around a giant tree.

(Tadanori Yokoo had a show at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in 2005. His official site.)

Copyright text 2005, by Jan Troost