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Noritaka Tatehana meets artience
Year
2026
Partner
artience Co.,Ltd.
Project
Art Collaboration
Focus
Color / Material / Craft / Upcycling
Noritaka Tatehana
meets artience
Year
2026
Partner
artience Co.,Ltd.
Project
Art Collaboration
Focus
Color / Material / Craft / Upcycling
01 — WHERE COLOR BEGINS
This project began with Noritaka Tatehana’s visit to artience’s ink manufacturing plant, where he encountered the process through which color is made.
At the plant, various raw materials are blended and each color is refined through subtle adjustments guided by the experience and sensitivity of skilled technicians. In the color-matching department, Tatehana witnessed a process that could not be completed by numerical values alone, but depended on human hands and judgment to achieve the desired color.
Through this encounter, Tatehana turned his attention to the materials, techniques, time, and craftsmanship that lie behind the colors we ordinarily perceive only in their finished state.
02 — STUDIES AND EXPERIMENTS
Another element Tatehana encountered at the plant was the surplus ink generated during the manufacturing process. In these inks, which had completed their original purpose, traces of countless colors accumulated in layers, creating expressions that could never have been deliberately produced.
Tatehana began to regard this “surplus” as a point of departure for a new form of expression, experimenting with ways of extracting and reconstructing fragments of color.
In Study for Abstract Painting (Surplus), he explored the relationship between artistic intention and the chance effects produced by the material, testing variables such as the viscosity and quantity of ink, its placement, and the pressure and movement of the squeegee. Through repeated experimentation, surplus ink gradually became a new material from which a painting could be constructed.
03 — RETHINKING SURPLUS
“Surplus” is what remains as a consequence of producing something that was needed. But what if it were viewed not simply as something unnecessary, but as a material that contains within it the very process of production?
The accumulated surplus ink retains traces of countless colors mixed at the plant. By extracting fragments from these layers and placing them in new relationships, colors originating in past manufacturing processes begin to acquire a different time and meaning.
Through Tatehana’s practice of “Rethink”—questioning established values and functions and reconsidering them from new perspectives—surplus is transformed into a possibility for creating new work.
04 — FROM SURPLUS TO PAINTING
Abstract Painting (Surplus) is a series of paintings created using surplus ink generated through artience’s ink manufacturing process.
Fragments of color are extracted from layers of accumulated ink, arranged on the surface, and then spread across the picture plane with a squeegee. While the artist determines which colors to select and where to place them, the viscosity and layered structure of the ink, together with the pressure applied, produce unpredictable mixtures and boundaries.
The colors that emerge are not predetermined or drawn by Tatehana. Rather, they arise at the intersection of time accumulated within the factory, the actions of the artist, and the physical properties of the material itself.
Presented for the first time at the Joshibi Art Museum as part of Rethink: Noritaka Tatehana — In the Hands of Time, the work marked the culmination of Tatehana’s collaboration with artience, which began at the very site where color is made.
Abstract Painting (Surplus)
CONCEPT
This work is a painting created using waste ink left over from the color-matching process.
The inks used in the work are spot-color inks originally formulated for companies and brands. Within a system of mass production, a surplus is generated each time these colors are mixed and is collected in containers for disposal. Because of the ink’s high viscosity, however, the colors do not readily blend with one another. Instead, they accumulate over time in distinct layers.
Noritaka Tatehana inserts a spatula into these accumulated layers of ink, extracts fragments, and arranges them on the surface before spreading them with a squeegee. The resulting traces become the painting itself. The colors and forms that appear on the surface do not depict any particular motif; rather, they are formed through the interaction between the physical properties of countless colors produced at different times and for different purposes, and the act of making the work.
The artist chooses which layers to extract and where to place them. The final appearance of the painting, however, is shaped by physical conditions such as the viscosity of the ink, its layered structure, and the pressure applied. The work therefore emerges from the interplay between the artist’s control and the chance effects generated by the material.
Each color is a trace of a hue designed according to the intentions of a company or brand and selected by the market. By reconstructing these accumulated layers of color produced by contemporary society as an abstract painting, the work attempts to make visible a cross-section of color shaped by the contemporary Japanese market.
ON THE TITLE
The title Abstract Painting (Surplus) reflects the nature of the work itself. “Abstract Painting” indicates that the work does not depict a particular motif, but instead takes the very act and condition of painting as its subject. “Surplus,” in parentheses, refers to the waste ink generated through the market-driven color-matching process—in other words, a surplus of color produced by society.
By relinquishing the need for a subject to depict, abstract painting has historically questioned the materiality of painting itself and the conditions through which a painting comes into being. The title situates this work within that trajectory while also marking a shift in the artist’s attention: away from the motif as an object to be depicted, and toward the materials and methods through which a painting itself is constituted.
Photo: GION / NORITAKA TATEHANA STUDIO