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Exhibition features art work by chimp

Asuka grips her palette and slaps and jabs the canvas with her brush, creating works that suggest a blur of brightly colored birds or chaotic sprays of flowers.

But when she’s done, the artist never signs her work, this chimp can paint, but she can’t spell.

About 50 works by Asuka, Japan’s most celebrated painting chimpanzee went on exhibition this month at Tokyo galley. It runs until October 11. The three-year-old ape’s painting career started last year when zoologists came to her home, the Izu Shaboten Park outside of Tokyo, and gave her a brush and a canvas as an experiment.

“Since chimps can see colors, we thought it would be best to give her a painting brush,” said exhibition organizer Takuzo Yoshimura. “So, we started on this painting project.” Asuka’s painting began in earnest last March. She has since produced about 90 works.

The paintings have surprising texture and variety. Shocks of colour splash across the canvas in some, while others have clusters of hues that look like exploding fireworks. The chimp’s painting style is seldom subtle. She attacks the canvas, whacking it with a stiff brush, but usually keeps her strokes within its boundaries. Asuka seems to favor yellow and red _ the colors of her favorite foods, bananas and apples. Her minders say she seems to draw satisfaction from her work.

“She looks calm and composed when she finishes painting a great art piece,” said Yoshimura. “Then I let her enjoy tea time.” Asuka is not the first chimp to dabble in art. Decades ago, an art exhibition at Britain’s Royal Festival Hall displayed paintings by a London Zoo chimpanzee, and the apes have painted in the US, the Netherlands and Germany. ap

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