Kitayama Yoshio (b. 1948) | Can’t Get It at All (Totei rikai shienai) | 1998

MEM Gallery, Tokyo

For the artist’s series Universe, Kitayama uses the precision tool Rotring pen on fine torinoko [lit. hen’s egg] paper to create appropriately large-scale works depicting planetary formations resplendent with clusters of light from faraway stars and galaxies.

Kitayama has been creating such large-scale works made with ink on traditional handmade Japanese washi paper since the 1980s, comprised mainly of his two series Icon and Universe. The former show enlarged human figures drawn from smaller clay sculptures, whilst the latter reflect the artist’s preoccupation with life, death and the nature of being. These exceptionally meticulous works made from an infinitesimal number of circles and penpoints converge and divulge as if emulating the laws of the universe on a quantum level: seemingly random encounters of atoms and molecules in their infinity constantly reacting with one another to form new worlds and visions of life.  

Kitayama was born in 1948 in Shiga prefecture and is now based in Kyoto. He represented Japan for the 40^th Venice Biennale in 1982.