Conscripted as a kamikaze pilot in 1943, Kenji Yoshida escaped certain death following Japan’s sudden surrender in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of August, 1945. Turning to painting to recover from his experiences of the war Yoshida, then aged forty, moved to Paris to concentrate on his art, in 1964. There, he joined Stanley Hayter’s legendary Atelier 17, where he refined his considerable skills as a print-maker. Subsequently, he developed his signature style: canvases covered by exquisitely balanced forms in oils overlain with gold, silver, copper and other metallic appliqué shapes all deployed in an abstract, Modernist aesthetic. Intensely conscious of the miracle of his own survival and of the fragility of life, he repeatedly used the single title of Life for the majority of his later canvases.

This sublimely simple canvas being composed of a central matte black form surrounded on every side by a soft silver colouring, demonstrates Yoshida’s delicate and allusive sensitivity. In Japanese terms the two parts function as complementary opposites – like the ancient Chinese Yin-Yang pairing – there being no space remaining for the introduction of any third vector. The black centre absorbs energy, while the silver surrounds reflect it, the two remaining in perfectly harmonious balance. Rather than the circular orb found in many of Yoshida’s paintings, the central motif here is reformed into a shape reminiscent of the Japanese 'tsuba' (sword guard or pommel), an iron plate that protects the samurai warrior’s hands from direct attack. Kamikaze pilots were presented with samurai swords as they departed on their final missions, so the 'tsuba' shape is inextricably tied to ideas concerning the reciprocal interdependence of life and death.