Sakuhin 1978

Sadamasa Motonaga made this painting, Sakuhin, using acrylic, at an unknown date. There's something playful about the simplicity of the shapes here; the mountain, the cloud, the splats of intense colour. You can tell he had fun making it, experimenting with forms. The flat surface of the painting, the way the paint has been applied so smoothly, gives it a real sense of unreality. Take the lava, for example - that soft-edged orange shape is somehow floating down from the cloud, rather than erupting out of the volcano. The thin ladder off to the right doesn’t lead anywhere, adding to the surreal sense of the image. I think of Joan Miro when I look at this work – that same feeling of invented forms, suspended in space. It reminds us that art is a conversation, a process of sharing and reimagining ideas. And most importantly, it leaves room for the unexpected, the things we can’t quite put into words.