You could be tempted to call Masahide Kudo a surrealist painter, because he wants to abolish the border between the unconscious and the conscious.
The surrealist also dreamt of abolishing these borders. Whether they always succeeded in their purpose ? to get loose of the powerful consciousness ?
I would not decide. But it is for sure than Masahide Kudo has decided to give absolute power to his body; he lets his hand go without guidance, in a complete confidence given to that hand.
It is nice to see him at work. Concentrated, without reserve he lets his hand do the work, looks with confidence to the result of what the hand brings before his eyes.
In his view,what is coming forth out of his fingers is the direct transcription of deep buried memories.
It is his conviction, as it was to the great painters of ancient Japan and China, that the body brings memories back.
I draw nature and space, an event that I sensed bodily somewhere and experienced. Time transferred to paper through the hand.
Events, and experiences that sink to the depths of memory and accumulate as memory.
When I face a canvas or a sheet of paper, I express the accumulated memory and something of my DNA through manual movement. It becomes shape and colour as it is expressed.
I recognize it as part of myself and memory once again.
I want to connect with the outside world through memory.
I think of the ancient people who faced the wall in a cave of Lascaux. – Masahide Kudo
More image of his work can be seen here
Masahide Kudo – Born in Japan in 1952 and lives in Yokohama. Graduated at Tokyo Zokei University of Art.