Painting by Takehiro Terabayashi - courtesy of Yoshimi Arts
Takerhiro Terabayashi painting exhibition titled:Small Life at Yoshimi Arts in
Osaka is a series of small scale, very interesting, well painted canvasses of what one might call the humble apartment
belongings of a hardworking Japanese salary man.
The Japanese are hard workers they're also very minimal in what they have within their household belongings being just a few utensils, some furniture and electrical appliances, its impressive to see coming from the west, especially Australia where people have big houses, cars and unbelievable natural resources that allows free entry into art galleries, museums and hospitals this doesn't happen in Japan.
For all genders, its brutally tough in Japan and in this series of paintings by Terabayashi one gets to see a range of images that resonate the bare necessities attached to that hard work ethic, for many of the paintings don't exhibit opulence or the extravagances of a rich or overly comfortable existence. But a salaryman's life of existing in a smallish apartment with just enough room to paint, eat, work and sleep.
In some ways looking at Terabayashi's painted possessions (pots, old phones, stoves tops, door handles and latches) executed with forensic detail and passion, reminds me of the painting by Vincent van Gogh titled: Bedroom in Arles (first Version 1888) who also painted his meager belongs.
This is a great show but as I have said before it is time for Terabayashi to travel to Europe or more specifically London and study at the National Portrait Gallery the surface qualities by the likes of Lucian Freud, Diego Velázquez, Rembrandt etc..., for a least a year or two, for I think it will help him to be an even better painter than he is now.
