ARTIST STATEMENT

 

Concept of artwork creation

Using my childhood memories of growing up in nature as a motif for my work, I recall the sensations of the things I held in my hands as a child, and replace them with various painting materials to create my works.

 

I create my works in mixed media while including my own unique world view.

 

While playing in nature, I squeezed flowers, tore off insect wings, kneaded mud dumplings, and felt life from various episodes in nature, and various senses within me were born, and my ego sprouted, and I began to imagine stories.

 

I was imagining the unconscious, boundaryless world I felt when I was still unable to make decisions, the existence of something, mysterious feelings, and the sense that nature is regenerating, reviving, and circulating, and that there is an existence in the mountains that seems to be guarding it.

 

I believe that each person has an underlying, internalized sense of security, a source of positive emotions, and other sensations that should not be forgotten.

 

I feel that imagined worlds and stories certainly exist in each person as a place to which they return again and again when they are faced with ideas, concepts, anxieties, or feelings of loss, or when they stop, or when they take a step forward, to overcome, or to regain their feelings and thoughts.

I am working on this work as if to speak to that feeling.

 

In the process of production, a character named "Chiuchie" was created out of a doodlebug, then I began to draw as a symbol of the image of "mysterious feelings, unconsciousness, and possibilities that we have in our childhood.

 

The art materials used in mixed media are collected for each production to be painted, valuing the sensations and feelings that I imagined when playing in nature as a child.

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About the work using kimono fabric

When I was searching for a theme in 2021, I had a strong desire to celebrate and support life.

 

I came across a kimono hanging in a store in a fabric wholesale district. The pattern had a mysterious texture that reminded me of a lunar colony (house), and moon inhabitants and Kaguyahime came to mind, which led me to create the 2021 work. 

 

I was deeply impressed by "The Tale of Princess Kaguyahime" (produced by Studio Ghibli and directed by Isao Takahata) based on "Taketori Monogatari", a fairy tale of unknown authorship written in the Heian period (794-1192). I felt that the impression of "Warabeuta," which tells stories of life of living things such as birds, insects, beasts, grass, trees, and flowers, sung in plays, is similar to the pattern of traditional Japanese kimono.

 

What I noticed from the nostalgic melodies of Warabeuta is that the memories of life were spun in the songs and stories that people have passed down orally from generation to generation.

 

I wondered if the pattern of the kimono was also wrapped in beautiful life by the wearers, protected and transmitted through the kimono.

 

With this awareness as a foundation, I created a series of works based on the theme of the story of Princess Kaguyahime in 2021, a condensed group of works of hope that traces my own memories, the world of Kaguyahime and the moon, the story that follows, and her thoughts about life. Comparing ideas, concepts, insecurities, and feelings of loss to the followers of the moon, the works depict the world of Kaguyahime, who fights back with creatures she imagined as a child and recaptures the place of her heart over and over again.

 

Production Process

In the production process, I do not start from a rough sketch, but rather, I build the work from my imagination based on the shape of the painting materials dripped on the canvas. From the beautiful colors and expressions on the canvas, a story or a creature gradually emerges and takes shape, which is then drawn out.

 

I use acrylics, pencils, pens, sumi ink, and pastel powder, and coat them with a protective material after they are completed.