Harada Keito

I mainly paint contemporary art.

I am fascinated by and often draw attention to blank spaces, and have created paintings that approach the space behind the painting or the space of the wooden frame.

I paint the relationships between lines and colors, and the sense of distance between the concrete and the abstract, which are possible while leaving a large amount of blank space. The subjects I choose as motifs are those that interest me so much that I can replace everyday scenery with paintings, or those that I intuitively move my brush around.​

In "Rikyu Koji Densho," one of the four-volume set of "Sado Shiso Densho (The Four Tea Ceremony Patriarchs' Texts)" edited by Matsuyama Yonetaro and published in 1933, Sen no Rikyu explains suki as follows: "Suki is something that is done differently, but it is the essence of I (Sen no Rikyu)." In other words, suki is understood as "creating something different from others."
It seems that even during the Azuchi-Momoyama and Edo periods, when Sen no Rikyu and Furuta Oribe lived, there was already a sense of modern artistic creativity.
And the concept of wabi in the expression of the tea ceremony, which is the core of suki, is taste in simplicity.

I believe that the roots of my expression and taste can be found there, and I would like to convey my own "present wabi."

Keito Harada 2025/1/30