Mountain Lake Screen Tachi

大倉侍郎作 「マウンテン・レーク・スクリーン達」 四曲一隻 胡桃材･油絵具・箔 1990年

This is one of a set of sixteen screens produced in Virginia during Okura Jiro's 1990 residence at the Mountain Lake Workshop, led by composer and artist John Cage. It is made of black walnut distressed and painted with black and cinnabar red paint then loosely covered with imitation gold leaf adhered with rabbit-skin glue. It is the artist's intention that eventually the gold will darken and fall from the screens, and the wood will return to its natural state. His acceptance of the gradual transformation of his art over time relates to the theme of disintegration explored by many contemporary artists, as well as to Buddhist concepts of the ever-changing condition of nature.