When the smoke of the first steam train slowly rose at Paris-Gare de Lyon in the late 19th century, the Parisian gathered together chanting the advent of Industrial Revolution. Imagine that glorious afternoon with sparkling sunshine on Seine, the moment when the train conductor rang the loud train whistle. It was a series of harsh but inspiring sounds, which seemed to proclaim the next chapter of human history that we were about to march toward, and also unveiled the curtain of the surging western modern arts of 20th century.
“Impressionism” is a well-known art term. Even the general public without any artistic education, is also familiar with this contemporary genre. Impressionism was a group of artists formed in the late 19th century. Its emergence had a significant connection with the social background at that time: the Industrial Revolution accelerated people’s life, the progression and popularization of science clarified the study in optics and chromatics. And most important of all, due to the rise of the middle class in social stratum, the theme of painting was no longer limited to the aristocrats, religions, historical heroes or legends, but gradually relevant to life. Impressionism is regarded as the origin of contemporary art in the history, aside from the coincidence with the historical process of Western history we address above, Impressionism has technically and conceptually resulted in the upsurge of abstract painting in 20th century. Post-Impressionism, which subsequently surfaced after Impressionism, basically inherits the technique of impressionist painters. However, Post-Impressionists opposed the conventionally outward portrayal in Impressionist paintings. They advocate that painting should demonstrate the artist's subjective emotions and feelings, and a painter should sublimate his work from objective description to subjective expression. The three Post-Impressionist figures, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cézanne, respectively had huge impact on the expressionism, Fauvism and Cubism.
When facing Toru Kuwakubo's work, we spontaneously can find all the Impressionist features shown in his paintings: the rapid strokes, the disappearance of outline, the application of natural light, and his proficiency in chromatics. It's hard to imagine a typical Japanese like him has such inherently Western aesthetics. However, if we stop in front of his painting a bit longer, we could easily perceive another strange atmosphere in the work: can be attributable to his clever composition, and the bizarre scenarios that are not usually seen in daily life.
Balanced and rhythmic composition
Despite all the Impressionist traces, it cannot be too overestimated if we consider Toru Kuwakubo has Post-Impressionist spirit underneath. Behind each of his landscape-like paintings, Toru builds up a private fanciful world. He uses the sky, the sea and the shore as the three main spaces, divides his canvas into three, representing three-dimensional perspective in 2D picture. Just as film director Wes Anderson who is known for his obsessively symmetrical aesthetics, such a balanced and stable composition has also become the feature of Toru Kuwakubo’s works. However, we still sense a little turmoil in his images, and all these dynamic representations came from the artist's brushwork and pigment stacking. Toru Kuwakubo rejects using outline but his powerful brush strokes to depict the clouds, the sea, and the ground, along with the heap of oil paints, situating all these natural elements in a moving position: the air flows as time goes by, and the grass swings accordingly. In addition, Toru Kuwakubo’s usage in oil paints has a totally different character from others. The Oil paint, is known as the pigment, unexpectedly has the essence of clay-like quality. Doing an oil painting is more like potting,
the painter stacks paints on canvas. Despite Toru’s preference in heavy paints, his painting still conveys a sense of lightness and airiness. It not only shows the artist's unique visual language, but his mastery in media.
A virtual Impressionist
Interestingly, Toru Kuwakubo is not merely satisfied with the creation of images, but further provides his discuss in contemporary art. By using the surnames of himself (Toru Kuwakubo) and Oscar-Claude Monet, he creates a virtual impressionist painter "Kuwoud Bonet”. Toru started a series of works with this virtual artist since 2014. In this series, Toru Kuwakubo imagines himself as several Impressionist painters, living in the 19th century, and allocates different painters in different months. Such as Cézanne had seemed to evoke the winds of May, while Gogh conveyed feelings of the summer nights in August. Apart from his attempt on paying his tribute to those Impressionist painters, Toru tries to invite the viewers to go into the scenarios he created by using such a time-space inversive way. The virtual identity who is different from the artist himself, so-called "Alter ego," reminds us of the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. In his famous artwork “Fountain”, Duchamp nicknamed "R. Mutt 1917," on a porcelain urinal which he purchased in a chain store. In 1921, his female alter-ego “Rrose Sélavy” fully surfaced in public. It seems to challenge people's definition in gender and their values of tradition. Through such tactics, Duchamp reexamined the humanistic phenomena, also happened to coincide with Toru Kuwakubo's desire to create another definition of art through traditional painting.
The brand new series by Toru Kuwakubo this time direct the viewers into Nunu Fine Art, conjure up an illusion of walking in the 19th century Paris surrounded by sound of the bawled vendor and the scent from outdoor-café. Before you're letting yourself into Nunu Fine Art, please lay aside the busy and chaotic pace of Taipei's lifestyle. gracefully lingering in the past memories that Toru Kuwakubo has brought to us.