Sold for: $31,250

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Los Angeles
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Ihor Holubizky, Kazuo Nakamura: The Method of Nature, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2001, page 12
Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 115

EXHIBITED
National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Exhibition for Poland, 1962, catalogue #28
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, Members’ Loan Gallery Acquisitions, 1963

Kazuo Nakamura was a founding member of the Painters Eleven in Toronto in 1953, and at that time he was producing abstracted landscape paintings. Nakamura was unique among his fellow abstract artists in that he did not follow the style of the Abstract Expressionists; he was also keenly interested in science and what he called “the fundamental universal pattern in all art and nature.” This interest led to more abstract compositions such as this one, its title being an indication of his penetration into what lies beneath the surface of matter. Typical of the series of works from which it derives, Inner Structure has a monochromatic, mottled surface divided by fragile lines with organic edges, precisely laid down using a razor blade and the edge of a piece of cardboard dipped into paint.

Ihor Holubizky wrote, “An open reading of Nakamura’s inner structure paintings allows us to imagine the unseeable, or unknowable,” such as what is revealed under a microscope or in scientific photography that unveils the hidden world of nature. These works could be a magnified view of the organic or inorganic, with a grid pattern that implies the human search for order. Inner Structure is a refined and elegant work, reflective of Nakamura’s discerning and sensitive thought process.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars