Untitled (Painted with Akira Kanayama) 1993

Atsuko Tanaka and Akira Kanayama made this untitled painting with, what looks like, enamel paint. It's all about colour, that electric blue background pushing forward against a kind of raw, firetruck red circle. The surface is pretty smooth but you can see all these looping blue lines, sort of vibrating against the red. Look closely and you’ll see they're not perfect. There’s this beautiful wobble in the lines, like a shaky hand drew them, and that’s what makes them so alive. They’re a bit like veins in the body. It reminds me of early Frank Stella but with this strange, untamed energy. Tanaka was always messing with these kinds of ideas, electricity, networks, systems. Ultimately, I think it is the contrast between the hand and the high-key colour that really gets to me. It's a super cool painting, right?