Year: 1988-89
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 73 x 53.2 cm (28 3/4 x 21 in.)
Acquired from SBI Art Auction, 2023
The “Work” series forms the core of Yamada's long career as a painter, in which his style has changed gradually from still-life to abstract painting. The series continued for about 40 years from 1956 to 1995, each decade was designated a letter of the alphabet from B to F, and thus, this work from the 1980s was named with the letter “E”. The “Work” series is not only classified by chronological period but also broadly by content, such as stripes, crosses, and grids, while this work is remarkable for its characteristic crosses. Incidentally, Yamada's expression of stripes, which is the most well-known feature among his works, is mainly produced in the “C” period (1960s). Throughout his lifetime, Yamada left approximately 5,000 works, yet he was one of the rare artists who regarded all his complete works as a single set of work. The cross series, including this work, seems to be painted after progressing through the simplification of grids, stripes, etc., following his early period of abstracting from still-life paintings, which can be seen as a return to that early abstraction process. On the canvas, the two crosses are so striking that they appear to be visibly rising. In the background, several bright colours are applied diagonally in layers with a contrasting image ambiguity, creating a rich spatiality. This is a work from the artist's golden period, when he was digesting various styles such as still-life, Cubism, and Minimalism, carving out his unique painting style in solitude.
