The painting of Tetsuro Shimizu could be defined as a process of variation on the matter of color where each work represents an original reflection on the encounter between the pigment and the surface. Each painting is unique, where visual and emotional suggestions translate into a renewed relationship between color, which takes on the shape of a vortex, with its own direction and a certain rhythm, and the non-orthogonal shaped canvas. As a matter of fact, the canvas is not a powerless or neutral surface that merely hosts the painting but is rather conceived as an active element in the creation of the artwork: the mixtilinear profile and the insertion of cuts and twists - in other words, a series of internal cuts on the inside of the painting and their projections - interact with the development of the color and subsequently with the wall. The Japanese artist's goal is to establish a dialogue between physical reality (represented by the tint, the shaped canvas, and the wall) and the conceptual dimension of the painting. These same cuts are intended not just as tears, but rather as an insertion of the real world into the pictorial one. In this sense, Shimizu acknowledges the dual status of color: it is both pigment and the image that subsequently emerges onto the surface, being thus linked to both thought and the sensitivity of the artist and the viewer.
The interaction between the artwork, the exhibition space, and the observer is made possible by the expansive and immersive effect of the painting, resulting equally from the shape of the canvas and the layering of the colors. The coat spread by Shimizu is composed of the overlapping of small brush strokes of different shades of the primary color, which, interacting with the different colors, make new pigments seem to both hide and emerge. It is the meeting of the tints that makes the perception of the painting’s surface mutable, suggesting delays and rushes through the variation of density and brightness. Color seems thus to take on a flow, except some portions of the support (that remained rough or were partially painted with earthy colors), and it seems to acquire a rhythm and consequently a motion. The dynamic and vibrant appearance suggests a virtual continuity of the painting beyond the limits of the framework, which is linked to the fact that the observer is forced to move his eyes across the canvas, following the chromatic flow, in order to try to capture each hue.
The artist’s loyalty to ideas of craftsmanship, intended as the desire to be in close contact with the painting, in its turn recognized as a reflective tool, is expressed not only in the shape of the canvas, made by the very artist, but also in the use of traditional techniques. Shimizu, in particular, uses oiled temper, a technique that is typical of Tiziano and that Shimizu learned in Japan through the legacy of Antonio Fontanesi, who taught in the country in the second half of the nineteenth century. The recovery of this sixteenth-century technique does not occur in anachronistic terms, but rather becomes an additional tool of meditation and originality. The artist prepares the canvas, generally made of hemp, with rabbit skin glue, over which the oiled temper is placed and then the oil paint. The adoption of this technique, besides the overlapping of brush strokes, establishes a certain degree of dense texture and sensuality of color, similar to the last works of Tiziano. However, when compared to Tiziano’s works, these qualities are not due to a paint layer that is detected, but to an effect of vibration and tangibility achieved by the layering. This layering is the same technique that had been experimented with by Gottardo Ortelli, an artist from Varese and Shimizu’s teacher at Brera, during his last phase of artistic production. It is the combination of all these elements that allow us to define Shimizu’s works as paintings with environmental potentiality: the shaped canvas, the color that seems to overflow beyond the painting, and the typology of pictorial spread which allows an impression of expansion on the surface. This immersive feeling establishes the observer’s engagement, calling him to read the paintings and letting his own imagination flow. The artworks do not allude to predetermined shapes, - as would be suggested by the evocative titles - but are rather the daughters of atmospheric and emotional suggestions. To Shimizu, painting becomes a moment of reflection and extrapolation of a state of mind, giving body to pigment. His paintings open toward the surrounding environment and to the audience, talking about themselves and their author: it will be then the observer’s job to interpret and live out what the color instinctively communicates to them.
