Amplitude

The distinctive playful and colourful aesthetic of Shintaro Nakahara belies the rigorous and complex creation of his paintings. Immediately arresting, his work draws liberally from Japanese tradition, Pop Art and contemporary cultural iconography to create visually striking paintings that blend ancient and contemporary elements to great effect.

Nakahara’s painting practice involves reinterpreting Japanese calligraphic forms, styling them into abstract compositions in vivid colours. Ever aware of the visual demands of such strong colouration, Nakahara is careful to keep his paintings relatively minimal. Despite the apparent disorder of his works, the number of different forms within each piece is cautiously restricted; generally, just one or two distinct figures emerge in each painting.

 A sense of rhythm and movement is achieved through the repetition of these forms, as well as through changes to their scale and colour—in this way, pattern-making becomes integral to the works’ structure. Balance and focus are created solely through the overlapping and intersecting of these forms, weighted by careful consideration of colour and almost surgical brushwork. This mix of compositional skill and manual dexterity ensures that the paintings remain sharp and immediately appealing, whilst rewarding deeper consideration.

Nakahara paints his boldly coloured forms against a flat monochromatic background, shifting the focus to the surface of the image and the interplay of colours upon it. The use of gloss coating and acrylic paints, coupled with a highly-refined painting technique, creates a digitally-processed look to the work, again connecting traditional Japanese content with Pop Art aesthetics.

Throughout his painting, Nakahara’s use of colour is not based on any consistent colour theory, but is instinctive and often surprising. Where two colours meet, the result is sometimes an entirely unexpected third value. These points of intersection take on a much greater compositional role and add to the hallucinatory, psychedelic tone of the works. Despite the initial flatness of Nakahara’s paintings, the use of darker ‘shadow’ forms creates the implication of depth while the layering of forms and colours reorganises the picture plane. Although completely manual, Nakahara’s edgework is razor-sharp, greatly increasing the impact of the contrasting colours and contributing to his clean, modern aesthetic.

Across his works, Nakahara demonstrates an interest in the formal properties of repetition, creating complex compositional structures while retaining the integrity of his figures. In this way, he references the rigorous repetition of calligraphic training, in which characters are drawn repeatedly to the point of mastery. Thus, while clearly referencing elements of our consumerist, throwaway culture, Nakahara’s work reiterates the virtues of practice, patience and perfection.