【 みえるものとみえざるものをつなぐこと 】
私は10 代後半に病気を患い、その頃から身体と精神のバランスについて考えるようになったことをきっかけに、生命の形状や存在を探るための行為として制作活動を始めました。
自らのルーツを模索する中で、古来より人びとのなかに無意識のうちに根付いている「目にみえないもの」を信じ、五感で感じ取ろうとする精神性に興味を持ったことから、その存在や信仰とは何かを問うようになりました。
現在は、作品を制作することは、みえざるものに形を与える祈りの行為であると考え、『 みえるものとみえざるものをつなぐこと 』 をテーマに、絵画表現を中心とした美術作品を制作しています。
私の絵画は断片を組み合わせるようにして構成されており、制作プロセスとしては、先ず視覚だけでは捉えきれないものを、「依り代」と称する小さな立体物を制作することで五感を通じて把握し、そこからイメージを拡張させていきます。
「依り代」には以下のルールを設けており、
・作品ごとに最低1つは描かれている、作品の核となるものである
・イメージを拡張させるための道具であり、″イメージを降ろす″ ための祈りの道具でもある
・絵画を想像だけで完結させないための、視て触れることが出来るドローイングという位置付けだが、そっくりそのまま描くわけではなく、あくまで作品の起点である
・自らの痕跡を作品に繋ぎ止めるため、日常において自身が手に入る卑近な事物を組み合わせて制作する
以上を満たすものとしています。
次に、既存や架空のモチーフを交えて、合成と解体を繰り返しながら絵画として構築します。
「依り代」から得られるイメージ以外には、過去に人が作り出したもの（哲学・宗教・神話・文字・数字など、文明の根源）を中心に描いており、近作では、他者が生み出した、役目を終えて使われなくなったような道具を作中に描き込んでいます。
道具には作り手の願いが込められており、それは祈りでもあります。「依り代」が自らの祈りを昇華させるための道具だとするならば、他者が作り出した道具を画中に取り入れることは、今はもう果たすことが出来ない他者の祈りを別の形で昇華（付喪神のような存在として神格化）させるような行為であると考えています。
私たちは、手の届く範囲でしか物質を感じることができず、ものごとを断片的にしか認知出来ません。
私の絵画もまた断片の集積であり、作中には時間・存在の概念において異なる事物が同一画面上に混在しています。
現在/過去・実在/架空、それぞれの断片を多角的に組み合わせて絵画として構築することで、「みえるもの」と「みえざるもの」をつなぎ、あるいは両者の境界を示すことを試みています。
自然信仰やアニミズム信仰の宗教観は古来より世界中に存在しており、日本においても、自然を神として崇め、また万物に霊魂や精霊が宿ると信じられてきました。時に神として、時に妖怪やお化けとして、みえざるものに形を与え、特別なものとして祀る人々のふるまいは、確かなものと不確かなものを繋ぐための行為であり、芸術の役割もまたそうであると感じます。
私は自らの作品を通じて、時代とともに変化はしつつも、現在を生きる私達にも脈々と受け継がれている精神性を考察し、問いかけたいと考えています。
【呼び継ぎ シリーズについて】
近年、別々の絵画を繋ぎ合わせたような「呼び継ぎ」シリーズの作品を展開 しています。
「呼び継ぎ」とは、欠けた陶器や漆器を金で繕う「金継ぎ」技法のひとつであり、大きく 欠けてしまった器の欠損部分を他器の破片を利用して埋め、金で繕うことで新たな器 として再生するというものです。
いわゆる「金継ぎ」はあくまで修繕であり、言うなればまだ生きている器を「治癒」 させるという意味合いが 強いのですが、「呼び継ぎ」はバラバラになり死んだ器を「蘇生」させるための儀式のように感じています。
呼び継がれた器の破片にそれぞれの物語があるように、継ぎ接ぎの絵画が、それぞれ の断片の外側へ続く見えない存在を想起させることができればと考えています。
・・・
【Connecting the Visible and the Unseen】
I became ill in my late teens, and it was around that time that I began to think about the balance between body and spirit, which led me to begin my creative activities as an act of exploring the shape and existence of life.
In searching for my own roots, I became interested in the spirituality of believing in "invisible things" that have unconsciously taken root in people since ancient times and trying to sense them with the five senses, which led me to question what their existence and beliefs are.
Currently, I believe that creating artwork is an act of prayer to give form to the invisible, and I am creating art works, mainly paintings, with the theme of "connecting the visible and the invisible".
In searching for my own roots, I became interested in the spirituality of believing in "invisible things" that have unconsciously taken root in people since ancient times and trying to sense them with the five senses, which led me to question what their existence and beliefs are.
Currently, I believe that creating artwork is an act of prayer to give form to the invisible, and I am creating art works, mainly paintings, with the theme of "connecting the visible and the invisible".
In the process of creating my works, I first grasp through the five senses what cannot be grasped by the sense of sight alone by creating small three-dimensional objects called "Yorishiro," and then expand the image from there.
The following rules apply to "Yorishiro"
・At least one "Yorishiro" is drawn for each work, and it is like the core of the work.
The following rules apply to "Yorishiro"
・At least one "Yorishiro" is drawn for each work, and it is like the core of the work.
・It is a tool to expand the image, and a tool of prayer to bring down the image.
・The paintings are positioned as drawings that can be seen and touched so that they are not completed only in the imagination, but they are not drawn exactly as they are, but they are positioned as a starting point for the work.
・In order to hold his own traces in the work, he combines everyday objects that are available to him in his daily life.
・The paintings are positioned as drawings that can be seen and touched so that they are not completed only in the imagination, but they are not drawn exactly as they are, but they are positioned as a starting point for the work.
・In order to hold his own traces in the work, he combines everyday objects that are available to him in his daily life.
I consider objects that fulfill the above conditions to be "Yorishiro".
Next, he mixes fragments of all kinds of existing and fictitious images, repeatedly synthesizing and deconstructing them to construct his paintings.
In addition to "Yorishiro," the motifs that compose his paintings are mainly things created by people in the past (philosophy, religion, mythology, letters, numbers, and other roots of civilization), and in his recent works, he depicts tools that were created by others and are no longer in use.
The tools are filled with the wishes of their makers, which are also prayers.
If "Yorishiro" is a tool to sublimate one's own prayer, then incorporating tools created by others in my paintings is an act of sublimating the prayers of others that can no longer be fulfilled in another form (deifying them as a kind of mourning god).
In addition to "Yorishiro," the motifs that compose his paintings are mainly things created by people in the past (philosophy, religion, mythology, letters, numbers, and other roots of civilization), and in his recent works, he depicts tools that were created by others and are no longer in use.
The tools are filled with the wishes of their makers, which are also prayers.
If "Yorishiro" is a tool to sublimate one's own prayer, then incorporating tools created by others in my paintings is an act of sublimating the prayers of others that can no longer be fulfilled in another form (deifying them as a kind of mourning god).
We can only perceive materials within our reach, and we can only perceive things in fragments.
My paintings are also an accumulation of fragments, and in my paintings, different things with different concepts of time and existence are mixed together on the same canvas.
By combining fragments of the present/past, real/fictitious, and each from various angles and constructing them as paintings, I attempt to connect the "visible" and the "invisible," or to show the boundary between the two.
My paintings are also an accumulation of fragments, and in my paintings, different things with different concepts of time and existence are mixed together on the same canvas.
By combining fragments of the present/past, real/fictitious, and each from various angles and constructing them as paintings, I attempt to connect the "visible" and the "invisible," or to show the boundary between the two.
Religious beliefs in nature and animism have existed throughout the world since ancient times.
In Japan, too, nature has been worshipped as a god, and spirits and souls have been believed to dwell in all things.
The behavior of people who give form to the invisible, sometimes as gods, sometimes as ghosts and goblins, and worship them as something special, is an act of connecting the certain and the uncertain, and I feel that the role of art is also the same.
Through my own works, I would like to examine and question the spirituality that has been passed down from generation to generation, even though it has changed with the times, and is still alive today.
The behavior of people who give form to the invisible, sometimes as gods, sometimes as ghosts and goblins, and worship them as something special, is an act of connecting the certain and the uncertain, and I feel that the role of art is also the same.
Through my own works, I would like to examine and question the spirituality that has been passed down from generation to generation, even though it has changed with the times, and is still alive today.
【About the "Yobitsugi" series】
In recent years, he has been developing the "Yobitsugi" series of paintings that look like separate paintings pieced together.
"Yobitsugi" is one of the techniques of "Kintsugi," a process of repairing chipped pottery or lacquer ware with gold, in which the missing part of a vessel is filled with a piece of another vessel and repaired with gold to make a new vessel.
While the so-called "Kintsugi" is a form of repair and has a strong meaning of "healing" a vessel that is still alive, I feel that "Yobitsugi" is a ritual to "revive" a vessel that has been dismembered and died.
Just as each fragment of a vessel has its own story to tell, I hope that the spliced paintings will remind us of the invisible existence that continues outside of each fragment.
While the so-called "Kintsugi" is a form of repair and has a strong meaning of "healing" a vessel that is still alive, I feel that "Yobitsugi" is a ritual to "revive" a vessel that has been dismembered and died.
Just as each fragment of a vessel has its own story to tell, I hope that the spliced paintings will remind us of the invisible existence that continues outside of each fragment.