Materials

SUPCHO works with traditional Japanese painting materials:
mineral pigments, water-based pigments, washi paper, and nikawa glue.

These materials shape how color appears, settles, and changes over time.

Materials That Invite Attention

What defines SUPCHO's work most clearly is material.

Mineral Pigments (Iwa-enogu)

Traditional Nihonga relies on mineral pigments (iwa-enogu), made by crushing natural stones into carefully graded particles. In contemporary practice, both natural and synthetic mineral pigments are used.

These pigments are valued not only for their origin, but for their remarkable depth and clarity of color.

Each pigment exists across a range of particle sizes, from coarse grains that scatter light boldly to fine powders that soften and diffuse it. The same color can appear differently depending on its grain, surface, surrounding colors, and the distance from which it is seen.

SUPCHO is particularly drawn to coarser mineral pigments. Their color is never entirely fixed, but shifts subtly through light, distance, and relationship.

Some works also incorporate finely ground quartz, creating subtle variations in texture and the movement of light across the surface.

The question is not simply what color is seen, but whether the color we believe we see is ever truly there.

Water-Based Pigments (Suihi-enogu)

Alongside mineral pigments, SUPCHO’s work makes extensive use of water-based pigments known as suihi-enogu—a material that plays a quieter but equally essential role in Nihonga.

Unlike mineral pigments (iwa-enogu), which are made from crushed stone, suihi-enogu are finely processed pigments made from materials such as earth and seashells, combined with dyes and other pigments. Their particles are extremely small, allowing color to settle gently into the fibers of the paper.

This behavior makes suihi-enogu especially suited to layering.

Rather than achieving depth through thickness, color is built gradually—layer upon translucent layer—each responding to the one beneath it. Subtle shifts in tone emerge not from mixing on a palette, but from accumulation over time.

For SUPCHO, suihi-enogu often serves as the ground of memory and imagination.

Sometimes this foundation consists of a single color; at other times, it emerges through multiple layers accumulated over time. These underlying colors are rarely intended to be seen directly. Instead, they remain within the work, quietly shaping what appears above them.

Like memory itself, they are never entirely absent, even when they cannot be clearly seen.

Earth Pigments (Tsuchi-enogu)

In some works, earth pigments (tsuchi-enogu) are also incorporated.

Unlike mineral pigments derived from crystalline stone, earth pigments emerge from weathered soil and natural earth deposits. Their colors are quieter, softer, and less reflective, carrying a sense of place, age, and geological time.

Rather than creating visual intensity, earth pigments introduce a veil-like presence. Applied in thin layers, they soften and deepen the colors beneath them without fully concealing them, allowing earlier layers to remain visible through the surface.

This quality makes them especially suited to memory and perception. Vivid colors become quieter, edges less certain, and impressions more distant—closer to the way memories are recalled than the way objects are seen.

In this practice, earth pigments are not used to describe the world more precisely, but to allow color to remain layered, atmospheric, and unresolved.

The Role of Glue

Nikawa, a traditional collagen-based binder long used in Japanese painting, acts not as a coating, but as a quiet structure that holds pigment, paper, and time together.

The balance is delicate. Humidity, paper, pressure, and the condition of each layer continually shape how color settles and endures.

Within this traditional material system, color shifts with distance, angle, and time, inviting the viewer to slow down and look more closely.

Washi Paper

In SUPCHO’s work, washi is not simply a surface on which color is placed.

Unlike smooth, uniform surfaces, washi retains the irregularity of its natural fibers. Its surface remains subtly uneven, allowing pigments to catch, gather, and settle in ways that cannot be entirely predicted.

These variations are not imperfections to be eliminated, but qualities that give each work its own character. The same pigment, applied in the same way, will behave differently depending on the paper itself.

For SUPCHO, washi functions almost like a genetic structure within the work: an underlying presence that shapes how color develops, settles, and ultimately becomes visible.

SUPCHO's Practice

These materials are precious and demanding, not because they are luxurious, but because they cannot be rushed or replaced.

In a world of instant color and infinite reproduction, SUPCHO values what unfolds slowly.

The work invites the viewer to look, to pause, and to notice how color quietly lives on the surface.

In this practice, color is not constructed all at once. It appears gradually through layers.

Mineral pigments rest on the surface of the paper, while water-based pigments sink quietly into its fibers. Each layer changes how the next one behaves. Some colors remain visible; others soften and retreat beneath the surface.

What emerges is not simply a painted image, but a slow accumulation of material, time, and perception.

Because these materials respond to humidity, paper, and touch, every work develops differently. Color shifts subtly as layers settle, light changes, and the viewer moves.

Rather than fixing an image, the work allows color to remain alive—never completely resolved, always open to perception.

What emerges is not certainty, but an invitation:

What do we truly see?