ROBERT YASUDA
b. 1940, United StatesRobert Yasuda composes subtly iridescent paintings suffused with luminous color. The Hawaiian-born artist investigates the fugitive qualities of light and human perception by layering acrylic paint and sheer, woven fabric atop sculpted wooden panels, Yasuda builds surfaces that are at once ethereal and architectural. His works assume different guises according to changes in light and the viewer's vantage point. Defying the traditional boundaries of painting, Yasuda's works possess a floating quality. He carves wooden panels into unusual forms with sharp upturned corners, softly rounded edges or subtly curved contours. Attaching covert cradle-like wooden structures behind several paintings, he forces the works forward into space giving them a distinctly sculptural quality. In other cases, he suspends his works from narrow supports creating dramatic T-shaped compositions. Yasuda is continuously rebelling against the conventional painting frame and introducing new means of context and framing.
Yasuda moved to New York City in the late 1950s where he attended the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. He began exploring themes of perception, light and nature in the early 1970s, producing resoundingly abstract paintings. He would dry the delicately layered canvases under the scorching sun in Florida, where he still spends half the year painting in the Keys. Increasingly, he became fascinated with the different character of his works when viewed in natural light versus artificial light
Robert Yasuda has exhibited extensively across the globe. He has been recognized with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Yasuda's works are in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; The New York Public Library; The Bass Museum, Miami, Florida; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; and The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas.
Courtesy Sundaram Tagore Gallery
Works at Sundaram Tagore Gallery
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