Work 2009

Tsuruko Yamazaki created this artwork with blue paint, likely on canvas, but you can't be sure. The artist’s hand moved across the surface, orchestrating an ocean of blues that swim and blend. It reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings where the paint merges with the canvas in a kind of blurry dance. I wonder, did Yamazaki lay this flat and let gravity do its thing? It feels like a collaboration with chance, with the paint itself almost having a say in the final outcome. And there is a conversation going on here between the canvas and paint. It speaks to me of experimentation, of what happens when one act leads to another and another. I imagine Yamazaki in her studio, surrounded by canvases and colors, each work a step in an ongoing journey of discovery.