Aine Kinashi

At the beginning of his career, the artist Aine Kinashi aspired to be a musician. Even Kinashi's first name, 'Aine', was derived from the German pronunciation of the first word in the title of the piece Eine Kleine Nacht Musik composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, Kinashi transitioned to a career in painting while studying at the Osaka School of Music, now the Osaka College of Music. In collaboration with fellow artist Masaya Sakamoto, Kinashi established the avant-garde art groups Delta and Tempo in the 1950s.Around this period, the Art Informel movement of Abstract Expressionism and the Anti-Art movement was causing asensation in Japan. Moreover, Kinashi himself was also producing abstract paintings. Kinashi was mainly known for his 'blue paintings' series, using oil paint mixed with metal powder. Kinashi used his fingers to paint these paintings: the texture, created by the traces of his fingers, flows like a gentle melody on the canvas; and the deep indigo (the primary colour of thepaintings) has an effect like a continuous bass sound. While Wassily Kandinsky succeeded in crystallizing music into paintings, Kinashi tried to embody the act of playing music as a substance in his works, attempting to create a new field of reality with music and paintings. ABOUT GUTAI »