Japanese Serigraph, c.1980, pencil signed and numbered 14/300

SIZE IN INCHES: 12 X 12 inches

AY-O (b.1931) is a Japanese avant-garde visual and performance artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s. This association promoted artistic freedom and independence in making art. In 1958, Ay-O relocated to New York City. In 1961, Yoko Ono introduced him to George Maciunas of Fluxus, and Ay-O formally joined Fluxus in 1963. As a member of Fluxus, Ay-O was known for his Finger Boxes series and his performance events. He worked closely with fellow Fluxus artists Maciunas, Emmett Williams, Dick Higgins, and Nam June Paik. Ay-O and Nam June Paik were roommates and became friends in the Soho Fluxus coop.

Ay-O established a reputation in the avant-gardes of Japan, Europe and the United States. In Japan, he is known as the "Rainbow Man" for his use of colorful, rainbow-striped motifs in his artwork. In its purest form, some paintings are simple gradations of the rainbow, with up to 192 gradations. Ay-O represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1971. He also built the famed "Tactile Rainbow Room" at the Osaka World's Fair in 1970. In 1971, true to his Demokato debut, he adapted 10 American Naive paintings and created a rainbow version that he called Nashville Skyline. Ay-O's attachment to Douanier Rousseau's work is another proof of his interest for naive art. In 1987 he did a series of Rainbow Happenings, with Rainbow Happening #17 being a 300m Rainbow Eiffel Tower project in Paris. As a rainbow artist Ay-O's work embraces abstraction more decisively than in his previous period, and human form when present in a rainbow context becomes itself abstract. One special work from the period 8:15 A.M. (1988), done for Hiroshima's MOCA represents the explosion with his Rainbow palette.

VG, minor flaws as shown