Ketchup Drool: SADAMASA MOTONAGA

Motonaga: Yes. “Large canvas and small canvas.” That’s it. So, I sent a 150-go and a 100-go . I didn’t send them every month. I sent them in batches. That was my contract. In retrospect, the fee covered just the cost of materials. At that time, I was happy to get seventy thousand yen. However, Gutai wanted to take 30 percent of it. I said, “It’s not as if I’ve sold any work. It’s just a contract fee. It’s not that much.” They didn’t budge. After paying out 30 percent, the remainder was a little more than forty thousand yen. With that I made a 150-go and a 100-go . The shipping was not included. I sent my work to New York a few times over the course of one year.

Motonaga: De Kooning was also Martha Jackson’s artist. Sam , too. Sam and de Kooning. And Appel, too. These artists were in Martha Jackson’s stable.

Kato: How was the new material?

Motonaga:I usually begin with form. In the previous ten years, I had poured paint, but I thought in New York it would be good to return to form. When I let the paint run, I used gravity. It’s beyond my intention. I wondered what could replace it. Then I found an airbrush. I thought of painting in terms of form by using an airbrush. I thought of what I could do with it. That’s how I felt in New York when I resumed my work.

Nakatsuji: I think it was more like you were groping in the dark.

Motonaga: Well, groping in the dark, you say. Yes, that’s what I felt, as I didn’t know what I was doing.

Kato: You just mentioned that you wanted to explore form. I think your color is very particular, too. How about color? How do you decide on colors? Which comes first, color or form?

Motonaga: Form comes first, of course. Otherwise, I cannot decide on color. I always carry a notebook interesting forms, so that I can think about them later. As for color, my basic colors are red and green.

Nakatsuji: You seem to use color intuitively.

Motonaga: Yes, it seems I have my own colors.

Nakatsuji: I think you deliberate on form, but you use color instinctively.

Motonaga: Yes, I have my colors. Say, with crayons, everybody has colors they don’t use. These become leftovers. That’s the person’s character. As a child I could not use the leftover colors, even if I was told to do so. Basically, the colors that get used are my colors. Those are my colors.

Kato: Yes, indeed, orange-tinted red and yellow-green are very characteristic in your work.

Motonaga: My red is vermilion but Shiraga’s red is crimson lake. He loves bloody red. We are very different. I cannot use his red, which is so unpleasant. But humans are strange. We all have our own different colors.

Kato: Certainly, we do not think color. Color is more about the senses.

Nakatsuji: I agree.

Motonaga: Yes, that’s true with color. Still, I am thinking about it.

Nakatsuji: You certainly think about it, but you end up with your colors.

Motonaga: Of course, that’s the way it is. Right now, my colors are red, blue, and yellow. But blue is not easy to work with. I use it in some places in a work. A little bit of blue. But I cannot use it too much.

Nakatsuji: You say too much blue makes it feel cold.

Motonaga: Yes. That’s no good. In place of blue I can use purple, but I don’t like dark purple.

Kato: In fact, I see light purple and yellow .

Nakatsuji: But in the past you used lemon yellow a lot. Recently, you haven’t used it so often.

Motonaga: It’s my age. I used lemon yellow before, but now I like a bit darker yellow.

Kato: I am interested in your forms, but I think your color is special. I sense your color embodies “this is Motonaga!” That is why I wanted to know how color factors into the process of your production.

Motonaga: First, form. I draw form and think about color. So, form and color are inseparable. I cannot think about them separately. So, if you put a red sheet of cellophane on your eyes, everything in the world looks red but things all have their forms. If you look at a white wall, it looks red. That is a world of color. Like Kelly, he paints a whole canvas in yellow.

Kato: Ellsworth Kelly, you mean.

Motonaga: So he does. But, after all, the canvas is a rectangle. So you cannot say it’s formless.

Ikegami: After you quit Gutai, did your work change?

Motonaga: No, it didn’t change. I don’t think my activities changed so much. I have been very busy. That’s a good thing about me.

Ikegami: Yes, you have continued to make your work.

Motonaga: At that time, I thought, “I have graduated from Gutai Art School.” I had known nothing, but at Gutai, I got hands-on training. I showed in many exhibitions and I became a painter. It’s very strange. So I thought, “I graduated from Gutai Art School.” I told this to Saburo, who said, “I cannot graduate from it.” I thought, “That’s one way to say it.” He was a philosopher: “No matter how far I go, I cannot graduate from it.” That’s one way of thinking about it. In my case, Gutai is gone, so I can say I graduated from Gutai. But I think San-chan is right, too. I have not graduated from Gutai’s way of thinking. I still want to do something new, that which has not existed before. My picture books, too, are experimental. I made a picture book with abstraction for children. In that sense, I haven’t graduated from it. Even after graduation, you keep the spirit. I didn’t go to college. So, I want to say I graduated from Gutai Art University.