Kikuo Saito: Dancing Across the Surface
Lower Gallery

December 1, 2021 - January 16, 2022

Exhibition Catalog

"His theater work also taught him to paint while the canvas lay horizontal on the floor—as was necessary with the very large backdrops for set... and his choreographic experience taught him to almost dance across the surface while painting, as well as to convey a dancing quality to the marks themselves.”
John Dorfman

"[Saito developed] a personal version of Color Field abstraction that depended as much on delicately inflected lines and edges as it did on expanses of seductive, saturated hues. Saito’s mature work is characterized by its inventive, often surprising use of color, ranging from frankly gorgeous, richly varied intensities to subdued near-monochromes–as well as by its eloquent drawing."
Karen Wilkin

"It’s perhaps not an overstatement to say that when we, as viewers, attempt to come to terms with Saito’s invented calligraphy, now plainly visible, now veiled by layers of paint, we recapitulate the artist’s youthful experience of arriving in New York and being confronted by a new language and a new alphabet. The sensuality of Saito’s color and the physicality of his paint handling could be equivalents for his pleasure in overcoming those challenges."
Karen Wilkin