The Japanese artist, who works with a compass, ruler and set squares, was named a "living national treasure" in 2007, a distinction awarded to him for achieving excellence in his field, yuzen (the art of dyeing, which dates back to the 17th century).
"From one framing to the next, the squares, triangles and circles speak to one another and trace out an order, hidden at first" he says. And he knows what he is talking about: he himself is behind the book Réflexions mathématiques sur la pureté de l'eau de source (Mathematical Reflections on the Purity of Spring Water) (1987, Éditions Galerie Jeanne-Bucher-Jaeger), and his creations draw almost exclusively on geometry. While carrying on the yuzen dyeing tradition, he has managed to renew this art and give it patterns that op art itself would not disown. In another book, Trente études sur le vert (Thirty Studies on Green) (same publisher, 1990), the artist's closeness to the shapes that fill his work comes through fully — and some of these shapes could form the subject of a genuine geometry problem.
A kimono named Pentagones écarlates (Scarlet Pentagons)
