Kikuo Saito “Resonant Tension”

Loretta Howard Gallery

[Image: Kikuo Saito "Green Pond" (2013) Oil on canvas, 44 ¼ x 17 ½ in.]

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Loretta Howard Gallery presents Kikuo Saito: Resonant Tension. The exhibition features paintings ranging from the late 2000’s, highlighting Saito’s use of vibrant color, calligraphic gestural abstractions, and rhythmical brushstrokes.

Kikuo Saito was born 1939 in Tokyo, Japan and later immigrated to New York City in 1966, both living and working in SoHo until his death in 2016. During his early years in New York, Saito studied at the Art Students League and acted as studio assistant to artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Poons, and Kenneth Noland. Mainly known as a color field painter, he began to exhibit in the early 1970’s and amassed more than 60 solo exhibitions during his illustrious career. Saito was also known for his theater collaborations with such luminaries as Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, Jerome Robbins and, dancer and choreographer, Eva Maier. His productions combined wordless drama in the poetic framework of light, costumes, music, and dance. The choreography of his productions significantly influenced the compositions of his paintings. Saito alternated between painting on the floor and easel– moving the canvas around, which in effect created flooded intervals of color, a very physical process akin to the dances he directed in his on-stage productions.

Kikuo Saito was an artist-in-residence at Duke University, a visiting professor at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan and a painting instructor at the Art Students League of New York. His work is included in the following permanent collections: The Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT; Queens University, Canada; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; Portland Art Museum; Bain & Co., MA; Central Bank Collection, MO; Estee Lauder Collection, NY; and Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, Netherlands. He showed at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery; Salander-O’Reilly Galleries; and Leslie Feely Gallery.