Submerged Rock by Tadashi Sato

Tadashi Sato (1923-2005)
Submerged Rock, 1992
Oil on Canvas
38 ½”H x 36 ¼”W

Submerged Rock by TADASHI SATO (1923-2005) depicts a solitude rock sitting in quiet meditation just beneath the water’s surface. The water that surrounds dances around it, playing with the sunlight that shines through the surface up above. What may at first simply appear as a peaceful composition of an underwater scene, upon further reflection, reveals the artist’s interaction with masters of the Abstract Expressionist movement during his formative years in New York City before returning to Hawai’i. The composition brings to mind the spatial forms in Adolph Gottlieb’s most iconic works while Sato’s technique of painting light also reveals his familiarity with the canons of 19th century European artists of the Impressionism art era.