Heaps of red and black on white
Again, the colours of sunset and the dark sky at night influenced his choice of red and black in his prints. There were also suggestions of blue at times. The squares, rectangles and triangles represented the wooden walls of the house that he had been so happy with. Vegetable shapes also formulated his rounded and elongated forms in white, touched over with beige and sprinkled with white on black. While working he had been sometimes satisfied with his work and sometimes not. Like all artists, Ishihara tried to express his thoughts and feelings to the best of his ability. Sometimes the results of the carving of the wood for the plate does not bring the exact results that the artist wanted. At times he is disappointed and at others. There are elements in the print-making result which intrigues him further and pleases him immensely.
Ishihara went into fine arts against the wishes of his family, that naturally wanted him to take up a successful profession that would pool in a lot of income that would help him to have a happy life with a family and home. His friends, however, belonging to fine arts, support him all the way in his pursuits.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Before starting his work, sometimes he sketches, and sometimes he takes fragments of his work and enlarges them into the final form. He has to work at his task slowly and step by step as there are many technicalities involved in this. He works both in the day time and night. He does illustrations, on a part time basis, at a private company too, to make ends meet. This commercial work involves decoration of Japanese dolls.
At first Ishihara was greatly fascinated by the sculpture work of Sunjawa Bikki but later moved into print being influenced by Professor Ozakewa. On the whole, he is a great admirer of Slavador Dali and Margarite.
His first contact with a Bangladeshi was ten years ago, when he was working at a part-time job. Today, coming to Bangladesh, he likes the many broken images of building constructions that he sees around him. He feels that broken images are a good reflection of society, with ties here and breaks there. Ishihara hopes to use the Bangladeshi images in his work in future.
In one of his prints he has three rectangles placed on a background of red and black. Texture work can be seen on the images in the form of delicate tracings and grain-like dots. In another there is a gray rectangle placed on more rectangles of red and black. Grains found in wood and oblong dots add interest to the creation.
Ishihara Makoto, who has an MFA from Tokyo has had two solo exhibitions, has taken part in about a dozen joint exhibits. He has four awards to his credit.