Tokurou Sakamoto has made his mark by depicting trivial things in today’s Japan, things which we often see in our daily lives, such as a park, an amusement park, an electricity pole, a pedestrian crossing, or an apartment complex, but he utilizes exquisite composition as well as blank spaces. He depicts various kinds of artificial things but without any people in his works, and this, along with the use of subtle colors, gives us a lonely image at first glance. Ultimately, however, his works evoke for us a kind image that allows us to get into the world depicted in them. The exhibition entitled “Tokurou Sakamoto: 2001-2009　WORKS” (GALLERY SAKURA NO KI, Karuizawa, 03/Jul/2009-20/Jul/2009) was an attractive project in which we could encounter approximately twenty of his works which had been created since 2001, displayed in comfortable rooms filled with bright natural light.

     Regarding this exhibition, it is noteworthy that some of the exhibits caused me to revise my earlier impression of Sakamoto’s works, which had been built through viewing several past exhibitions. Let me introduce the “Sky” series [fig. 1] as one of the examples. In this series we find landscapes of the earth covered with cloud as viewed from above by someone who seems to be flying in a plane. It was first presented in 2008 but I missed the opportunity to see it. I learned about this series for the first time from a leaflet of this exhibition, and when I looked at the actual pictures in this exhibition, they created an extremely intense impression. Previously, Sakamoto has depicted ordinary scenery with which we are familiar from our daily lives, such as the “Breathing” (acrylic gouache/Kumohadamashi, 100.0cm×100.0cm, 2008) [fig. 2] and the “Afternoon” (acrylic gouache/cotton cloth, 130.0cm×162.0cm, 2001) [fig. 3], both of which were shown in this exhibition. In some of his creations, including these two works, he drew the sky using more than half of the picture plane, but he has never created works as if from the viewpoint of a God, such as viewing the subject from the sky.

     It is a really dramatic change for him to move his viewpoint for looking at the subject from the ground to the sky. Today, we can get satellite images easily from Google Earth on our personal computers at home, but the sky still seems to be a kind of unknown existence for us in that it can never come under our control. I suppose the work entitled “Takeoff” (2008), in which the sky is depicted as seen from a plane window, might have had a great influence on this switch in his creative approach. In fact, after this work, Sakamoto succeeded in presenting to viewers that the sky always exists in our daily lives, without any change. 　He did this by depicting the sky in an extremely simple and lively fashion without being viewed through a window as was depicted in the “Takeoff”.

     Although it might be too early to say this, it may be inevitable for Sakamoto, who was a graduate of a Japanese painting course, that his interest in intervals or blank spaces, which has been recognized from the beginning of his creative activities, has made him turn to creating works under the concept of depicting the sky as a thing in which there is absolutely nothing. If Sakamoto used ink or powdered mineral pigments in his creations, his means of expression would be extremely different to the current style. In his first etching work, which was exhibited for the first time at KIDO Press in Kiyosumi-shirakawa and also displayed in this exhibition, we can see that his brushstrokes remain in the work. Nonetheless, basically, Sakamoto creates works by using acrylic materials to make it impossible for viewers to find his brushstrokes in his creations, as we can see in the “Sky” series. It can be said that Sakamoto succeeds in drawing viewers into his works by concealing his brushstrokes in order to reduce the evidence of his own presence and strengthen the anonymity of the landscapes in his creations.

     Lastly, therefore, I would like to compare his creations with those of a “Nippon-ga” artist, Taro Yamamoto. While, in the “Afternoon” (acrylic paints/Kumohadamashi, 16.7cm×116.7cm, 2002) [fig. 4], Sakamoto depicted a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign in which Colonel Sanders is smiling, Yamamoto, who is of the same generation as Sakamoto, has also used the graphical image of the Colonel in some works. Nevertheless, in contrast to Yamamoto, who highlights the Colonel’s personality as a “character” in his creations, Sakamoto deprives the sign of its original meaning – its characteristic as an advertisement - by depicting it as a part of the scenery. It may not be appropriate to discuss the rights and wrongs of these contrasting means of expression since there is only a slight difference in interpretation between depicting trivial and anonymous landscapes and stretching the meanings of symbols extracted from such scenery. That is the reason I feel an urge to compare Sakamoto’s works with those of Yamamoto by looking at them side by side. Indeed, we find a great deal of originality in Sakamoto’s creations, but comparing them with other artists’ works would allow us to recognize more strongly not only the characteristics of his pieces but also to see a modern image of Japan.
(Translated by Nozomi Nakayama)

"Tokurou Sakamoto: 2001-2009 WORKS"
03/Jul/2009 - 20/Jul/2009
Venue: GALLERY SAKURA NO KI, Karuizawa