Motomi Kawakami: Design with Precision and Flexibility

Motomi Kawakami was born in 1940 and grew up during the 1950s and was influenced by the artistic culture of the time. In the Post-War period the lens of modernism was focused, in terms of internationally, on developments in New York City. The Second World War had brought many important creatives to the city in exile from Europe, leading to a significant pooling of talent and ideas. Influential Europeans that came to New York and provided inspiration for American artists included Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers and Hans Hoffmann, who between them set the basis of much of the United States’ explosive cultural growth in the subsequent decades. Important artists of the Abstract Expressionist Generation included Jackson Pollock (who innovated his famed drip, splatter and pour painting techniques), Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Frank Kline, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb. It was a male dominated environment, but necessary reassessment of this period has highlighted the contributions of female artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Louise Bourgeois, amongst others.