Three colors on top 1991

Sadamasa Motonaga made "Three Colors on Top" with paint and canvas, and look at the way he lets the colors play! Imagine him standing there, maybe a bit unsure at first, then diving in. The large black mass has such a hard edge, made of zigzags like some kind of weird saw blade. I am thinking about how he applied the paint – was it one big swipe, or did he carefully build it up? And then there are the colors. Each one wears a little safety pin like a piece of jewelry, or maybe they are there to keep something together. It is kind of a strange family portrait when you think about it. Motonaga has a kind of playful and intuitive approach to color and form. He explores the basic elements of painting, and he's also asking us to think about what painting can be. Like other artists, he finds his own way of doing things, and in the process, adds something new to the ongoing dialogue that is painting.