Royal Arch by Kuroda 20" x 15" (10/50)

Shigeki Kuroda was born in 1953 in Yokohama in the Kanagawa Prefecture. In 1977 he began studying painting at Tama University of Art in Tokyo and finished with a masters degree in 1979. In 1984 Shigeki Kuroda traveled to the United States where he learned different printmaking methods - etching, drypoint, mezzotint and aquatint.

The artist grew up in the midst of a conflict between tradition and the western modernization and industrialization. Against this backdrop, Kuroda deals with the change of the Japanese cultural identity in his works.

Style and Technique of Shigeki Kuroda

For many years Shigeki Kuroda worked hard to develop his own style and to perfect it for his needs. From a technical point of view it is a mix of aquatints, drypoints and etchings, that he further developed using watercolors, pencil and Sumi-Indian ink. This variety of print materials allowed the artist to overcome contemporary artistic challenges, for example movement, specific light or spacial abstraction.

The prints from Shigeki Kuroda limit themselves to few sparingly applied colors. He only seldom uses colorful and bright accents. Otherwise the graphical element dominates, not the color, and the fine and detailed picture captivates.

Themes and Motifs

Shigeki Kuroda focused curiously on a single motif: a closed group of bicycle riders on continuous ride with umbrellas that can be repeated multiple times in the picture.

There is a certain humor in this picture that is not uncommon, since he is dealing with life in traditional Japan. Kuroda, however, puts the riders in a context that confuses and has a certain surrealist effect.

Kuroda rips a distinctive motif from Japanese culture out of its normal surroundings and sets it in a new and strange setting - in a landscape or in a room formed by two dimensional scenery.

As if he wanted to check, in which world the Japanese tradition still endures, Kuroda creates fictitious reality, real, but also abstract art. The reduction to a theme gives his collection the sense of a continual experiment that is carried out with human and artistic dedication.

Dimensions: 20" x 15"