Japanese artist Tomoo Gokita had already developed an international reputation as a master draftsman, particularly in charcoal, before making the move to canvas painting. Extending his monochromatic technique into acrylic and gouache on canvas, Gokita masterfully maximizes the materials to create compositions that display an exuberant mixture of art historical and pop culture associations. In the playfully titled canvas, Merengue (Lot 1668), featured here, Gokita offers a classic image of a mid-Century American pin-up. Her body is rendered in bold, simplified masses, modeled in deep and rich black, whites, and near-blue-grays, reminiscent of black and white film and photography. Gokita cleverly plays with her materiality; not only does her right leg seem to disintegrate into a pool of deep black in the floor, her upper torso and head have been replaced by an exploding mass of surrealistic organic forms, reminiscent at once of sweet confections and nuclear clouds. The hard edges of his steely black lines and luminous whites evoke the urban-inspired Cubism of Fernand Leger, while the areas of pure painterly abstraction further undermine the three-dimensionality of the space. Finally, the fluidity of Gokita's technical and figural juxtapositions give the work a Surrealist, "automatic" quality that belies the meticulous attention he gives to managing his materials. This astonishing combination of learned and experimental form and content make Gokita one of the most exciting young painters in Japan today.