Koji Kamoji (1935), WHITE IMAGE WITH STONES, 2015.

acrylic, crayon/fiberboard, pebbles, 70 x 100 cm
signed, dated and described on the back: Koji Kamoji | "White painting with pebbles" | 2015

Painter, creator of spatial objects and installations. Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo in 1958, came to Warsaw in 1959 (his cousins were translators of Polish literature), where he began his painting studies at the Academy of Fine Arts (1966 he received his diploma in Artur Nacht-Samborski's studio). Since 1967 he has been working with Foksal Gallery, in 1975 he was awarded the C. K. Norwid Critics' Prize, and in 2015 he received the J. Cybis Prize. In his work he combines the traditions of Japanese art (the aesthetics of Zen philosophy and the conciseness of the haiku form) and European abstraction (he was friends with Henryk Stażewski). He often refers to the categories of meditation and concentration. From June to August 2018 there was a retrospective exhibition of the artist's works at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery (Koji Kamoji. Silence and the will to live).

The work on display is characteristic of the artist's work, embodying silence and stillness using a strictly narrowed range of artistic possibilities. The white space can symbolize nothingness, or the absolute, the gray belt is the sky or a flowing river. The stones evoke the severity of Japanese aesthetics. It is an image that invites the viewer to meditation, as well as existential pondering.