Bicultural Roots

By Peter Katel

Everyone knows the cliches about Latin American art: the outpourings of a region whose landscapes are as vivid as its history is turbulent; the works are florid, exuberant, often politically inspired. But the cliches fall away when one views the work of Brazilian artist Kenji Fukuda, whose creations are as timeless, serene and harmonious as a Japanese rock garden.

In a contemporary art world that celebrates expressions of multiculturalism, Fukuda's paintings and sculptures, all abstract, are prized for uniting the aesthetics of south and east. The synthesis comes naturally for him. The grandson of Japanese immigrants, part of a wave of 190,000 people who moved to Brazil during the first four decades of the 20th century, Fukuda, 58, was born in coffee country in Sao Paulo State, where his father had a factory that made fans. Fukuda, who has no formal art training, began his apprenticeship by painting Japanese landscapes on the fans after he came home from school.

Even then, the boy who spoke and read Japanese before learning Portuguese was melding cultures. In his fan paintings, Fukuda used bright red, reflecting the brilliant tones of the raw coffee berries and the bougainvillea shrubs that illuminated the South American topography that surrounded him. The tropical palette has become his trademark. "If I don't use red, the painting seems somewhat deadened," he says. But he adds, "No tone can fight against another tone. There must be harmony." In a painting he completed this year, Composition on a Red Background, he contrasts his reds with calmer gray and brown tones. Meanwhile, his bronze sculptures are marked by empty spots that, Fukuda explains, are meant to convey airiness. For well-known critic Alberto Beutenmuller of Sao Paulo, the traditional Asian side of Fukuda's work reflects a spirit of "not wanting to lose roots or customs."

After his rural childhood, Fukuda spent some 20 years in Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial center. He again adapted his surroundings into his work, using automobile paint to accentuate his sculptures. In 1980 he fled to the peace and quiet of Curitiba, a smaller city in the interior of the country. There he continues to pursue his lifelong quest to merge his birth culture with his ancestral one. "I transmit the calmness and order of my Asian upbringing," he says. But he also keeps faith with his South American side: "Art must transmit joy and energy."

--By Peter Katel. With reporting by Sol Biderman/Sao Paulo

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With reporting by Sol Biderman/Sao Paulo