Just as the Chinese society went through drastic changes and Chinese contemporary art started to connect to the rest of the world, Kumi Usui visited China for the first time. From Yokohama to Kobe to Shanghai, Kumi’s tour in China extended from a time-limited planned vacation to an indefinite period of study abroad, and later, the artist would find love, and a place of belonging here.

Three decades later, Kumi lives and works in China. She speaks fluent Mandarin, and even Chongqing dialect. Just as she immersed herself in practice at the cram school so many years ago, she has immersed herself in painting countless abstract works, with her head bending down, she keeps on paining regardless of the boundaries and forget about causes and results. Her technique combines the gestural brushstrokes of Japanese calligraphy and the wandering style of Western abstract painting. Acrylic paint covers sheets and sheets of sketchbook sized paper.

The works are varied. Some feature a few brushstrokes, and a smattering of canny points and lines. Others are dense and passionate — covering the entire sheets with a single color, often blue. Intuition is clearly in charge here, with many brushstrokes made almost unconsciously, but what lies behind the mental engineering that guides one’s intuition and instinct? This is the question that Kumi Usui meditates upon in her artistic practice -- the essence of life, and how to create art that returns to the origin of joy, motivation, and meaning.

几乎就是在中国社会发生巨变，中国当代艺术开始与世界接轨的时候，九九第一次来到中国。从横滨到神户到上海，九九的异国旅行从一次原本有限期的休假延展为无限期的留学，再以后，爱情和人生的归属地。三十来年后，九九是一位说着一口流利的普通话，甚至重庆话的在中国工作生活的日本籍艺术家。以抛开束缚，不理会原因结果地埋头画画的工作方式，九九创作了难以计数的抽象绘画作品。纸摆在桌子上，艺术家埋下头，用介乎日语书写大字的抓笔方式和西方抽象绘画的游走式样，让丙烯色彩占据一张张速写本大小的纸张。这些作品，有的寥寥数笔，勾勒一些灵动的点和线；有的浓重猛烈，整张纸被一种单色涂满再涂满，蓝色是她常常用的颜色。显然，直觉是牵引这些几乎处在无意识状态下画画的笔，而又是什么引导直觉和无意识构建生命的心灵工程呢？这是九九用艺术创作塑造她对生命本质的思考，如何让艺术回归到创作的愉悦、动机和意义的原点。