Quadrangle

Chiyu Uemae’s pictures are full of changeable accumulations and striking colors, sometimes the colors are hidden in the lower layers, and the surface layer is monochromatic. The rich, concrete visual intensity created from the materiality of this material comes from the Gutai Manifesto (published by Jiro Yoshihara in 1956)
“Working in a more intense and proactive way. It is not the result that matters, but the act of leaving a trace of the self in the material”.
Different from the performative works made by many artists such as Shiraga Kazuo, he has always injected his own experience into his works, leaving a unique ‘trace of self’. Benefiting from the apprenticeship experience while studying dyeing in Kyoto, and the young memory immersed in non-figurative design thinking, the sewing
practice has become an important source for the maturity of Uemae’s artistic style. Most Gutai Artists give the impression that they complete their work instantaneously with some drive, Chiyu Uemae is an exception, he is characterized by layers of repeated small movements, highlighting the materiality of the painting, and it is abstract and absolute.
‘I used to work in shipyards and steel mills for many years. These environments and settings, and the materials I encountered in these factories, became the foundation of my work.’
— Chiyu Uemae
Chiyu Uemae grew up in a poor family, and hard work is his daily life. He never thought of selling paintings for a living. In his diary in 1947, he wrote: “I have to work to earn a living. But my life is sustained by painting.” He repeated patterns, creating with intuition and a sense of life. Thus, he ‘rejects literary elements to paint first’or
anything interpretive and representative.In this sense, there is no direct metaphor or retrospective trace for these patterns. His dots and lines are the breath and heartbeat of a painter eagerly living his daily life, where his unparalleled true artistic truth lies.
In the later period, Chiyu Uemae cooperated with the printmaker, and worked with them in the workshop to study the production process suitable for his work. Due to the variability of materials in Uemae’s works, the complexity of the process is constantly changing, and the artist is also inspired by such work to continue new
creations.

‘I have to work to make a living. But my life is sustained by painting.’
— Chiyu Uemae
In April 1958, in the exhibition ‘New Paintings/World Exhibition – Informel and Gutai’ held at Takashimaya
Department Store in Osaka, Michel Tapié, the founder of Art informel,enthusiastically praised the Chiyu Uemae’s works, the shapeless art that seeks freedom resonates with Uemae’s art across cultural and linguistic boundaries. Uemae said, ‘My hands are trained to be omnipotent, engraving images of my brain through nerves on selected materials.’ For Uemae, the pursuit of the feeling at his fingertips, that is, of his Gutai-like actuality is an art in itself  .