Voracious attempts at creation

Road to Paradise -90×72.5 1973

“Can a painter live without painting?”Takami Sakurai This replies: "I can. And I can't".

Wakes up at five o'clock every morning. He eats a vegetarian diet of one soup and one meal.
Paints for five or six hours straight. Every day, he undergoes a rigorous training similar to that ofa monk. And what does painting mean to him, who says that "painting is a way of life"? Heanswers, "Painting is a way of life". This does not simply mean an obsession with painting
alone. Rather, he continues to reject the painter's habituation to painting.

Fifteen years ago, he founded the avant-garde painter's collective Kyushu-Ha. This group was
not a place of technicalism where gypsum sketches and realistic paintings were studied. It wasa union of more than 20 young artists who were confronted with the great question of what
expression is. The expression of slapping paint on a large cambeth that could not possibly fit
inside the studio, or the inaction of digging a hole in the surf. The happening of the bonfire,
reminiscent of esoteric practices. A loach floundering in a large tub, a chicken stuck to a wall acts that are probably impossible to interpret and explain in everyday language - captured thehearts and minds of the young people of Kyushu-Ha. It was a bold challenge to establishedauthoritarianism.

At the same time, it was an adventure of the spirit, an attempt to tap the roots of humanexpression from the unconscious and aimless. They were extremely diligent painters. Theireagerness to experiment with creation went far beyond the norm.

The shadow of one painter, Takami Sakurai, is on every one of these trajectories. He says:"Painting is to live.” He refuses to paint, and spends his entire life in an act that leaves no trace.
To get up at five o'clock in the morning and continue painting. These two tremendous
amplitudes are hidden within him.

This is why some people are surprised that Sakurai Takami "paints". After his second visit to theUSA, he had already painted over a hundred pictures in five months. Many people would not
believe it. He lived in the USA for two years each in 1965-67 and 1970-73. Based in SanFrancisco, he travelled across the continent from New York to Mexico and then on to France.
He slept and woke with Allen Ginsberg and Gary Schneider, standard-bearers of the post-war
American poetry world, and absorbed each other's work. He produced murals, held solo
exhibitions and created communes. His large spiritual sphere directly corresponds to thevastness of his sphere of action.

In the sense of a speculative commodity on the art dealer's route, he is not a successful painter.
Financially, he is in a modesty reminiscent of an ascetic monk. And yet, this is not a constraint
on his behaviour in any way. It is not an obstacle to painting. The scale of his work isimpressive.

From 15 to 24 May, a solo exhibition is being held at the Fukuda Gallery in Hakata Ward,
Fukuoka City. The works on display are mainly 'women's faces'. Women with flowers in theirhair, their lips knotted and their eyes wide open, speak to us from behind the canvas. Thewomen look like Mexican Indians, ancient Egyptian women, Tahitian women or young Japanesefarm women. The joy and strength of the women who live amidst the cycles of the earth and thesun is expressed in their faces, which is common to all of them. It goes without saying thatthese 'women' embody the prayers born from the endless adventures of Sakurai Takami's spiritand actions. He often says that 'to live must be a joy'. This joy of living is the aspiration forhuman life to be a festival that is celebrated by Mother Nature.

Modern civilised society has been built by banishing fundamental human festivals from life. Forartist Takami Sakurai, who seeks to restore human festivity, there is still not a moment's respite.
After the exhibition, he will soon return to Europe. Some of the works displayed at the exhibition
will remain in someone's possession to continue to follow the endless wanderings of an artist.

Before Japan runs out of steam F30