Further Variations on a Sucker

Kenjilo Nanao

Kenji Nanao depicts a broad leafed plant with a swirling purple, red and white sucker growing from the center. A black border allows a window of 'bokashi' graded blue to white outdoor light to enter and illuminate the interior composition. He did a series of lithographs of the subject using different colors and backgrounds.

After learning lithography from Nathan Oliveira at the Art Institute in San Francisco in 1960, Nanao got a Ford Foundation grant to study lithography at Tamarind in Los Angeles in 1968, where he became a Master Printer, printing for other artists.

Kenjilo Nanao first became known for his delicate, surreal, and sometimes erotic lithographic still lifes with finely graded grounds of color, reminiscent of Japanese Shunga prints. Although lithography had been his medium of choice since his student days with Nathan Oliveira, in the early eighties he began to focus more attention on painting.