<b>HEIAN KINKAKU SYNCHRONY</b> / Clifton Karhu1978<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Karhu worked from life, producing print designs of well-known locales he visited throughout Japan. Being an expat who took up residence in Japan’s old capital, Kyoto, Karhu was blessed with an abundance of subjects for his print designs. In this work, Heian—Kinkaku Synchrony, the design is based on Karhu’s own imagination, blending two distinct historical locales, both in Kyoto, into one design.

This print features the Golden Pavilion with its phoenix emblem at the top of its iconic golden roof structure while slightly below stands the main entrance to the Heian Shrine with its distinctive red torii gate standing partly ajar, closest to the viewer. In reality, both landmarks are miles apart, but Karhu successfully blends them into a mélange of contrasting and complementary colors that unify and animate the design in Karhu’s signature palate. At the design’s highest point, the rising sun overhead is executed in the familiar red of the Japanese flag. Still, its circular form radiates out in concentric circles expanding into the composition. Karhu masterfully alters the composition’s colors where these circles extend, giving the viewer the sensation of pulsing light, altering the composition’s color as it travels throughout the design.

The term Synchrony in the title may suggest the blending of two locals into one. The title may also suggest Karhu’s early experimentation of Synchromism—an early abstract color-based mode of painting—created by his teacher, Stanton Macdonald-Wright. Though this design is clearly representational, Karhu grants color a great deal of freedom within this composition, allowing it to deconstruct the familiar and build the viewer a new monument to marvel at.

Connoisseur's Note

Heian—Kinkaku Synchrony is one of Karhu’s most successful designs. It incorporates the abstract-based color theory he learned as an art student and successfully blends it into his representational design. This work is a rich and vividly printed impression in an excellent state of preservation. Other known variants of this design were produced with a much lighter coloration that lacks the power of the more vivid impressions.