Hikawa Shrine 1996

Tadanori Yokoo made this mixed media collage print, Hikawa Shrine. Yokoo layers symbolic images relating to Japanese culture and mythology. The collaged forms feel like a puzzle, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I feel like Yokoo is having a conversation with the viewer, but also himself. What might he have been thinking when he made it? There's a figure riding a horse with a sword, poised and ready. The horse and rider appear to be hewn from stone, like a monument to the past. Yokoo combines familiar icons with bright colours and overlaid images. They create a surface that feels both nostalgic and radically new. I see the echoes of Andy Warhol's pop art sensibility in the use of colour and overlaid motifs. Yet, there’s also a quality that reflects the deep traditions of Japanese printmaking. Artists inspire one another’s creativity, they are in an ongoing conversation across time. This collage is a form of embodied expression embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.