Work 作品

Since his debut in 1961, Tomoharu Murakami has continued to explore planar expressions in black. From early in his career, his monotone works have been consistent: blacks are painted in subtly overlapping layers to bring out various grades of dark and light, and a complex play of light and shadow is created by the uneven surface. Murakami's works are of a completely different character from meticulous Minimalist works that reject the idea of craftsmanship by using industrial products and other means. Murakami developed this style before Minimalism, which flourished in the mid-1960s. Including a decade during which he did not exhibit, he has continued to work in the same style assiduously for over thirty years. His artistic viewpoint, which seems to place more importance on the act of repetition than on the work that is the product, reminds us of the monks who transcribed manuscripts in medieval monasteries. Because Murakami's canvases are not taller than human height, they may have iconic significance. If so, in his leaving his works "Untitled" or simply calling them "Work", we can see this Christian artist's stoic rejection of the self as part of his rigid artistic attitude.