The artist, who died in 2009 at the age of 88, arrived in Paris in 1951, where he met Alechinski, Jorn and the painters of the CoBrA group, as well as Foujita, with whom he became friends.
whom he befriended. Although rooted in European painting, his style reflects an original universe at the crossroads of Eastern and Western traditions. His legacy
a work of flamboyant color through which he never ceased to evoke nature: trees, rocks, gardens in bloom, volcanoes and rainbows compose a language
of joy and vital energy. Yassé Tabuchi, who settled in Vauhallan, Essonne, in 1959, has since extended his painting activities to Denmark, Belgium and other countries, as well as Japan, where he has had numerous solo exhibitions.
“Colors stimulate each other, they possess brilliance without killing their neighbors. In this tension, harmony is not lost. This, what good painting
good painting should be, can undoubtedly be found in many of the great historical works.
In Yasukasu Tabuchi's paintings, what makes them even different is that green, red, ultramarine, yellow - the very color of pigments is alive. These colors, as they come out of the tube, orange and violet, black and white as colors and the often-used gold, applied unmixed here and there on the canvas, sometimes over almost the entire surface, retain all their purity, overflowing with transparency and soaring, vibrant. The liveliness of these colors, often with breathtaking force of their own, strikes the viewer. There are countless painters who skilfully play with intense primary colors and vivid hues. But there is no other artist capable of converting the brilliance of the original color into the painting's own light. Here, color itself asserts its material existence. Or else, the substance of color is obvious to us. This presence of color gives Yasukasu Tabuchi's paintings their incomparable appeal.” Toshio Yamanashi, Director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Osaka.
“Gold is a material of collective archetypes, and these transcend both Japanese aesthetics and (Christian) religious sensibilities. It's clear that gold is a universal archetype that is not exclusive to either Japanese or Christian culture. And because it is an archetype, it is likely to represent, within each culture, conceptions and emotions particular to that culture, and even, sometimes, gold risks being identified with a nuance attached to a national characteristic.
e attached to a national characteristic. This is why an “explanation of gold” becomes a means of avoiding falling into the trap of interpretation. And it allows the Japanese to be freed from an arbitrary “Japanese” aesthetic, and Westerners to consider the possibility of sensuality becoming a “language” as profound as abstract thought. For a painter like me, who straddles two civilizations, it's a bit like being the bat in Aesop's fable. “Yasse Tabuchi
The artist's works
Press kit