Improvisation I, acrylic paint, gouache, ink, collage, pigment on paper.
Improvisation I (2026) is a work on Arches paper inspired by the music of Masabumi Kikuchi.
My artistic process can be defined in explicitly musical terms: I am interested in the visual dialogue between structure and chance—a realm explored by jazz musicians who improvise within the framework of a melody. In "Improvisation I," the rectangles represent the harmonic grid, while the splashes, marks, drips, and spatters constitute the improvised solo.

Improvisation I appears on Hanamichi: The Final Studio Recording Vol. II, a posthumous album by the Japanese pianist Kikuchi, drawn from sessions held in December 2013 at the Klavierhaus in New York.

Kikuchi approached his improvisations with what he called "compartmentalized originality," playing notes sparingly and slowly—a stripped-down approach where restraint signifies not hesitation, but revelation.

Structure as territory; the accidental as truth.

In my own artistic practice, geometric rectangles establish a framework, yet it is the splash that reveals the truth. With Kikuchi, the reference tonality (even when absent) serves as the framework, while the deviated note, the suspended chord, and the unexpected silence convey the essence. Both works inhabit the tension between the order we impose and the disorder that emerges.

My blue—hovering between black and ultramarine—is reminiscent of Kikuchi’s sonic palette: dark, rich harmonies that are never garish. His improvisations possess an exploratory quality driven by his inquisitive nature—that "compartmentalized originality"—creating music that sprang from his soul. I hope my blue possesses that same introspective depth. The white central area of ​​Improvisation I is not a void—it is a space where the eye pauses its movement, just as Kikuchi does with the silence between notes. Silence is an essential component of Kikuchi’s music; he pays close attention to the sound of each individual note.

The lines radiating from the black splash cannot be retraced—they were created in a single gesture. Similarly, Kikuchi always resisted closure; he preferred the question to the answer, the gesture to the statement, silence to resolution. Both works reject repetition and explanation: in their entirety, they constitute a single gesture.

My work on paper Improvisation I and Kikuchi’s Improvisation I share the same ethos of the moment: accepting that beauty arises from the fracture, that structure is an invitation rather than a prison, and that improvisation is not the absence of form, but its most honest form. I paint what Masabumi plays: an unstable, luminous balance that is never resolved.
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