Three lights

Hasegawa Yûichi studied printmaking under a prominent print artist Saitô Kiyoshi. While Saitô works in quiet but distinctly figurative images, almost all Hasegawa's prints are abstract. Hasegawa's works from 1984 to early 1990s are represented in this gallery's collection. In those prints he took inspiration from natural phenomena such as the wind, waves, snow and soil erosion and expressed it in combinations of organic textual patterns and geometric forms. In this print which mimics a triptych, he uses his usual vocabulary of textural patterns and geometric forms (circles) to represent a traditional subject of the moon over autumn grasses in the 'Plains of Musashi'. He uses three combinations of the moon and grasses creating subtle resonance and movement in this traditional landscape.

Asian Art Dept.
AGNSW December 2000