Takunori Nakata mainly creates landscape paintings, but he uses an unusual method of incorporating programming techniques into his paintings. This is not only because he studied digital media before studying art, but also because he is trying to be at the forefront of the history of painting, as he says, "New things are not created by painting alone. Maybe he will become a role model for the new generation of artists. You said that you studied digital media before art, is that right? - Originally, I studied digital media. I joined the art club at university and that's when I got hooked on art. Later, even though I majored in digital media, I began to shy away from digital as an expression. Eventually I re-entered art school and studied figurative painting. Is there a reason why you focus on landscape painting? - I feel that if you focus on people, you lose reality, so I have always preferred landscapes, both to look at and to paint. I believe that people and nature are equivalent, but I think that people in my paintings are more like symbols. What does reality mean to you? - For me, reality is "death. It may sound a little scary, but I try to paint landscapes that give a sense of the connection between the world of death and the world of life. For as long as I can remember, I have felt something special about landscapes, and I have always wanted to express that feeling in my paintings. Friend Who I Hasn't Seen in a While, 45.5cm×38cm How do you incorporate this "special feeling" into your work? -- I purposely broke the painting after I finished making it. There was no ingenuity in the painting, and I was aiming for something that was more of a product of chance. It takes a long time for each piece to be truly finished, but this is the only way to create what I am aiming for. You seem to be incorporating elements of programming into your paintings. --I started mixing in programming elements in 2018. I was mainly using Photoshop, but when you're tinkering with programming without a purpose, it can get complicated and accidental. Iconography is all about animation, cutting out the best parts and turning them into images, which I then turn into paintings. The purpose and method are the same, but animating is like checking to see which image is better. But in the end, the parameters of try&error are totally different between analog and programming. Mrs. Strage, 72.7×91cm Do you focus on a theme or concept? -I don't focus on themes or concepts. However, in terms of art history, I think the current method is the best way to solve the problem of the relationship between metaphor and symbol. Of course, my goal is to create new paintings, but I can't create something "new" just by painting, at least that's what I feel, and I think my current approach/process of creating art is reducing the distance between the two. So looking back now, I think learning digital has been very helpful. Recently, I've been interested in the arbitrariness of language, as I believe programming and language are similar. I would like to continue working as an artist, and I believe that my role is to offer something new to the world. Meeting Place, 91×116.7cm