Autumn 1927

Yamakawa Shuho created this print, Autumn, with ink and color on paper. The autumnal palette, the falling leaves – it’s all kind of melancholic, isn’t it? The way the image is put together, it's not about showing off skill; it's like a feeling that someone is trying to capture. I love the texture in the woman's kimono, the layering and the repeating pattern of the different suits from a deck of cards. The whole garment becomes more complex when you notice the hearts and spades. The red of the outer kimono is mirrored in her lips, drawing your eye around the print. It's like he’s thinking about this woman and remembering details about her clothing, or maybe dreaming about her, and leaves out things that he can’t quite grasp. I think of Morimura Yasumasa, another Japanese artist, who takes images from art history and recreates them with himself as the subject. Like Shuho, Yasumasa is playing with form and challenging our idea of the fixed image. Both embrace the beauty of the incomplete, suggesting that a piece of art can contain many truths, rather than one single meaning.