Solution of Continuity 連続の溶解　Solutions des continuités

This painting is composed of only the intense colors of red and black. The red square at the center is painted uniformly in acrylic, and is in strong contrast with the bands of black on either side with their textured oil surface. Each component of the picture forcefully asserts itself, clashing with the neighboring components, Domoto started as a Japanese-style painter, and was accepted to the Nitten exhibition when he was only twenty. Then he moved to France, won himself a renown as a painter of the Informel group, and generally enjoyed success as an artist until 1960, when he encountered a block. In the "Solution de continuités" series of paintings produced after this blank period, of which this is an example, we can see the artist working to find an answer to his fundamental question on painting. He tried to redo the pictorial space, and more specifically, to revise the relationship between figure and ground. The red square in this picture has not been formed by red paint; it has been formed by leaving that shape unpainted by the black. This series of works was awarded the Arthur Lejwa Prize at "The Biennale di Venezia" of 1964.