Japan Society

Edo Pop: The Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints

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Paul Binnie - interview

(b. 1967, Scotland; lives in London, United Kingdom)

I studied oil painting and art history. I became interested in ukiyo-e and its influence on such painters as Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet during the late nineteenth century. In 1990, I moved to FRance for a few yeas, where I began collecting ukiyo-e prints. I decided to move to Japan and learn ukiyo-e technique in 1993. To me, ukiyo-e printing is a low-tech technique; there are no acid or press machines involved. You carve directly and print directly. There is intimacy in this method.

I also became interested in the modern print movement in Japan called sosaku hanga (creative prints), which got rid of the conventional division of labor among designer, carver, printer, and publisher. I wanted to acquire skills in all those aspects and achieve a high technical quality, but it is difficult to get to the level of competence you see in classical ukiyo-e prints. Nowadays, there are so few people who practice this form of art, but I keep at it because the technique, for me, is the way to connect with past ukiyo-e artist whom I admire.

At the same time, I'm trying to create new art, not a museum. I like to use different sources of inspiration, material, and tools. I use poppy colors to reflect contemporary tastes, use powdered metals, and even use electric chisels for large works. In my works such as "A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo" series, I am playing visual games in the pictures that reference back to cultures of the Edo period and other forms of Japanese art. Ukiyo was wonderful in the past and still is today, and prints of the floating world can still be vibrant art.

For more information on Paul Binnie, please visit:

http://www.paulbinnie.com/
http://www.scholten-japanes...

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