TORU IWAYA

By Noriaki Seo
The Shoto Museum of Art (Tokyo) curator

Toru Iwaya uses the mezzotint technique, which is a method rarely in use today. This "black technique" expresses the deep world featured just beneath the motif that is floating on the black surface. For example, few colors were used in making Noh Mask. This particular series represents the sense of beau called yugen, meaning that it conceals a unique Japanese dramatic element. His Ko-Omote print could express a world of infinity or of dream and fantasy. The mask, the moon, shells, and leaves in the woods or sea portrayed in the mezzotint darkness gives the impression that the wind of stillness is blowing.

October 2005