Nihon Buyo 1981

Tadanori Yokoo made this painting, *Nihon Buyo*, using a free application of paint and a daring colour palette. The materiality of this piece is really interesting; the texture is soft and inviting, like it wants to suck you into a hazy dreamworld. The pinks, yellows, and greens swirl together, creating a landscape of colours that feels both familiar and totally alien. Look at the central circle with the daffodil-like flowers bursting from it; the way the green bleeds into the pink creates a sense of depth and movement. There is something about the overall looseness and strange composition of this piece that reminds me of Albert Oehlen, an artist who, like Yokoo, embraces imperfection and ambiguity. In fact, Yokoo’s paintings, much like Oehlen’s, function as ongoing conversations between different ideas and visual languages, celebrating art as a space for multiple interpretations.