Alan Pocaro reviews the exhibition Universe Is Flux: The Art of Tawara Yūsaku at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, on view through April 1, 2012.

Pocaro writes: "Like paintings made in expressionist or Zen traditions, Tawara’s works-on-paper look fluid and indifferent to mistake. But the effortlessness is deceptive. Rather than being dashed off in a hurry, Tawara’s practice was slow and methodical. The bold, simple brush strokes that comprise his paintings are in fact accretions of small, almost infinitesimal marks. Antithetical to Western automatic traditions, these pieces are born out of an approach to gesture that borders on obsession."