The oil on canvas 鈥淐ambria 202173鈥� by Yukio Imamura was donated to UNESCO in 200. It is part of a series called 鈥淐ambria鈥� which includes an ensemble of abstract paintings depicting spots of different colors which converge in the middle of the composition.

In 鈥淐ambria 202173鈥�, these blue 鈥渟pots鈥� bear a resemblance to reptilian scales or cells observed through a microscope. Imamura creates an optical illusion by using cold colors, metallic hues and an abundance of circular and irregular shapes covering the entirety of the canvas. He also painted two columns each made up of three circles in the middle of the canvas, one in pale pink and the other in a bright yellow. The yellow being the only warm color in the whole painting, catches the spectator鈥檚 gaze before it wanders over the immensity of the surrounding blue. The illusion is made more spectacular when moving away from the canvas, where the three-dimensionality appears much more clearly.

Imamura鈥檚 creative process begins through drawing, which he is capable of undertaking for ten or fifteen hours a day during a month before allowing himself to work with color. In order to achieve his larger paintings such as the 鈥淐ambria鈥� series, he paints the whole surface of the canvas with one color before progressively adding touches of other colors and seeing which shapes emerge. In this painting, the shapes look as if they were taken from a science book; one can clearly see the similarity with the structure of cells, DNA, atoms, etc鈥� Imamura want us to enter the universe of the infinitely small whilst adding a poetic touch thanks to his use of color.

Artist biography

Yukio Imamura was born in Ise (Japan) in 1935 and began painting at a very early age. When he was only seventeen, he left his native city to go live in Tokyo and carry out his career as a painter. He admired painters such as Jean Dubuffet or Francis Bacon but was also inspired by Jerome Bosch and Jan Van Eyck. He left Japan to live in Paris in 1977 where his style continually evolved.

In the 1970鈥檚 he began depicting cosmic universes using pure and bright colors. Between 1980 and 1990, he works using a specific technique he invented: he used extremely liquid oil paint and applied it on the canvas with a compressed air pistol (see the series 鈥淶enon鈥�). As of 2000, while still using this technique, he began creating monochromatic works with metallic highlights. Around 2004, Imamura evolved towards a more lively style, often consisting of large colored spots placed against flat colored surfaces. Today, Imamura lives and works both in France and Japan. He recently became interested in the sculptures of the Nigerian Muyume tribe, which he has transposed in painting, but also returned to his roots by illustrating the traditional images of the Japanese zodiac. He is ultimately an unclassifiable artist who moved between abstract and figurative art, between the traditional and the conceptual, without ever losing his own personality.

The Museum of Modern Art of Paris acquired some of Imamura鈥檚 artworks for the first time in 1986. He has also received certain commissions from the Japanese Government. His paintings decorate the University of Nagoya (1994) and the Congress Center of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1999).