Tsuyoshi Maekawa

Tsuyoshi MAEKAWA is recognized as one of the key second-generation members of Japan's postwar avant-garde group Gutai Art Association. Maekawa is best known for using coarse burlap as both the subject and medium of his artistic exploration. Through innovative approaches, he investigates the relationship between perception, materiality, and abstraction.

Using a sewing machine and his own hands, Maekawa stitches together hemp fibers to alter their wrinkles and textures, twisting, cutting, tearing, and shaping the burlap to create protrusions and indentations on the canvas—works that exist between two and three dimensions. His practice focuses on uncovering the inherent properties of materials while infusing them with bold, forward-looking abstraction and emotional intensity.Characterized by simplicity and strength, Maekawa’s flowing lines evoke the rhythm of tides, while his vivid, dynamic color palette captures a sense of movement and vitality. Through these processes, he establishes a new kind of artistic dialogue that bridges body, spirit, and artistic gesture.

Tsuyoshi MAEKAWA was born in Osaka in 1936. He joined the Gutai Art Association in 1962 and had his first solo exhibition in Gutai Pinacotheca in 1963. His work has been included in historically significant group exhibitions, including Intuition at the Fortuny Museum, Venice (2017); Gutai: Splendid Playground at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013), Nul=o at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2011); 30th Anniversary Exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2007); Gutai at the National Gallery of Jeu de Paume, Paris (1999).