I got to know Koichi Nasu in the 1980s. He had arrived from Stuttgart, where he studied Painting in Paul Uwe Dreyer’s class at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design.
Following visits to his studio just outside Frankfurt and on the basis of innumerable conversations and after a lengthy study of his works it became clear to me that Koichi Nasu has never ceased to constantly and consistently advance his painting, which is characterized by paper collages.
Nasu himself describes his paintings as an “expression of the juxtaposition of graphic and colored spatial form.” His art hinges on the use of the line as a striking feature in his compositions.
The distribution of lines on the picture surface is always a manifestation of subtle frugality in harmony with and contrast to the colored area.
It is not uncommon for the line to form the boundary of a color field or to move across the pictorial surface in correspondence with a second line that never runs parallel to it. It is an essential component of the entire composition.
The colored areas mostly consist of transparent papers, applied delicately and often in several layers.
Transparency as an expression of spatiality, of opacity, and functions as an indication of the creative process.
Over the course of time my encounters with Koichi Nasu and his wife led to us becoming friends. And so I invited him to take on a teaching appointment at the Offenbach University of Art and Design, and which Koichi turned down explaining that teaching was not something to which he felt suited. He participated in the exhibition series I initiated and entitled “Zwischen Malerei und Objekt” (Between Painting and Object) in 2004–5, showcasing an impressive selection of his works in Schloss Philippsruhe, Hanau.
When he looked at my own works Koichi was surprised that I could work for such a long time on a series and was amazed at the diverse nature of my work.
He admired my three-dimensional works with serial structures on two levels and the structural changes they undergo as a result of light and shadow. He said that they sparked curiosity, especially when the viewer altered their position.
The light reflected on the structures moves between light and dark, cold, and warm, near and far.
There are rhythms of light and shadow, of surface and depth, of clear and diffuse depiction, of motion.
We discussed these things often and compared our work to that of other artists.
The exhibition in Frankfurt’s Japan Art Galerie is an attempt to juxtapose both bodies of work and in doing so illustrate that as a result of their evolution two different artistic statements can ultimately reflect the same mindset.
Klaus Staudt
