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Forest of the Sun

SUGAI Kumi

1967

Sugai settled in Paris in the early 195Os, and, after a passionate involvement with the Informel, he came to establish a unique style of his own using clear-cut forms and limited colors. This work basically consists of simple geometric forms of circle, triangle, and square, but the poetically evocative title, "Forest of the Sun," allows one to see the image of vegetation in the round green form and of light in the adjoining bright area.
The production of a mural for The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, in the year following the completion of "Forest of the Sun" marked a turning-point of his career, and he started to produce larger works. The forms increasingly took on the nature of signs used in an attempt to establish a communication between the painting and the society. Eventually, the subtle, organic roundness vanished, and the artist started to use a combination of simpler figures characterized by a liberal use of stripes, but the poetic titles remained his mark. The essence of Sugai lies in this poetic use of sign-like forms.