TRiCERA conducted an exclusive interview with Chiharu Yakushigawa, an artist who completed the Master of Fine Arts program at Kyoto Seika University in 2013 and creates paintings with limpid colors and strokes that captivate the viewer. What does this energetic painter hold in her heart as she continues to express herself? We explore the basis of this question.
Interviewer: Asako Tamoto (TRiCERA)
Painting as an act of care
What have you been focusing on recently?
I started a series of"Knock" paintings last year . I put paint directly on my hand and knock, and leave traces of the knock.
The series was inspired by my thinking about social networking sites, and while there is a positive aspect of being able to connect with anyone and experience a new world, I feel that the hurdle to entering the personal realm has been lowered.
Knocking is a very simple act that everyone has done before, butI believe that it is an act of consideration tolet the other person on the other side of the wall know that we are there.
Do you mean drawing a line with others by using objects called "doors"?
Or rather, the act of knocking itself. It is an act of letting someone know that you are here, and at the same time, it is an act of consideration for the other person. Such an exquisite act of knocking is the subject of this project.
I have the feeling that you often use human relationships as the subject matter in your other works.
Yes... I'm a pretty lonely person, lol.
Originally, when I was in college or something, I was like a loner and just painted pictures. I was really painting all the time, so I guess I was mostly self-contained and not really interested in other people. I was painting figurative paintings at the time, and I just wanted to be good at it.
Is that how you became the lonely Ms. Yakushigawa? Laughs.
I think I became closer to other people when I went to graduate school and lived in an environment where members were limited in their daily lives.
Creating artwork as a gift
Do you project your feelings and thoughts into art as an outlet? Or do you enjoy the coincidence of the art or the process of making something itself?
It is overwhelmingly the former. My works are not often based on positive concepts, but often start from a negative place. However, the act of making artwork itself is a positive thing, and I hope that by creating artwork out of sad or helpless feelings, I can give hope for tomorrow, andthat other people can relate to my work as a gift for tomorrow.
What emotions do you feel when you make a work of art?
I am often asked how I make my works. I have a trigger, and I just move my hands toward it without hesitation. Emotions can be strong when I have an idea, but even when I am working on a piece that requires a lot of strokes, the work itself is calm and unaffected.
How do you want your work to be seen?
For example, in the "Knock" piece I mentioned earlier, it is hard to tell what I am drawing, and it is also fine if people simply think it is beautiful. I myself am the same way. When I look at a work of art, I think it is like a mirror, no matter what kind of work it is. In the end, depending on my potential at the time and the situation, something that I did not think was good before will appeal to my mind. In the end, the way I see changes depending on what kind of situation I am in and what kind of problems I am facing. So it depends on how you feel sympathy, and there is no such thing as "this is how I want you to see this work. However, for those who are attracted to my works and want to know more about them or wonder what I am thinking when I make them, I tell them that this is what I am thinking when I make them.
Do you think of yourself and your artwork as sort of separate? Or are they one and the same?
In my case, there are many works in which my own person is physically involved in the work, such as leaving handprints directly with my own hands, so I may be the one who does not separate myself too much.
The solitude of the artist
Do you sympathize with the suffering of artists who are caught in the middle of their emotions and feel drained?
I can 't say that it is easy to understand, but I think the act of making art is lonely, and I sometimes lose track of who or what it is for, and it weighs heavily on me. The act of painting is not like sports, where there is no easy-to-understand numerical goal, and you just keep climbing up the stairs without any hesitation. When you create a work of art, you often start with something very personal, so there are times when you lose confidence in yourself and become lonely.
Did you have any doubts about becoming an artist?
I have always had a strong desire to become a writer, so I never had any doubts about it. However, from a social perspective, everything I do in today's society is inevitably related to money, so I wondered if anything that is not directly related to money is meaningless. There was a time when I wondered if what I was doing was meaningless if it was not directly related to money.
The experience of creating the artist Chiharu Yakushigawa
What have you focused on in terms of what you want to influence or convey through art? Are there any that you plan to focus on in the future?
People think that creating a work of art is just a matterofself-satisfaction, but that is not the case. Even if my work does not reach people in my lifetime, there may be people who can relate to it decades from now. I myself was once saved by a painting in such a way, and from that experience, I would like to create such timeless works that people can relate to.
What was that experience like?
There was a time when I used to paint mainly figurative paintings and I lost track of what I was painting. I had become sick of the act of painting itself, even though I had come such a long way in the art of painting, and I stopped painting for a while and devoted myself to looking at artwork.
It was then that I came across a work byMark Rothko* that brought me to tears. His works didn't depict anything, just colors. It was the moment when I felt that the painting I had been pursuing and thinking about was so small. Although I had not painted anything, when I stood in front of the painting, I realized how vast painting is, and I felt the childishness and smallness of what I had been doing. I had an experience that changed my life from a single work of Rothko's until now. I want to do painting again by myself, and I want to be a creator who communicates again. However, all I had done was superficial and superficial. I had only been thinking about improving my technique, and from now on, I don't want to paint works based on some kind of atmosphere. I decided that I would only take what I could understand and agree with.
The first painting I started back then, when I decided to let go of the figurative painting I had been doing and start writing abstract paintings, was overwhelmingly more free than before, and I didn't know what was good or bad, but I didn't want to paint somehow, so I just drew strokes from right to left. I didn't want to decide on the color somehow either, so I made a gradation of my own skin color. I don't know if that work was good or bad, but I felt like I had finally reached the starting line of my painting.
*Mark Rothko (Mark Rothko)......Aleading American Abstract Expressionist painter of the 20th century. His works, characterized by simple colors and huge canvases, are in the collections of major museums around the world, including MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), Tate Modern (London), and Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art (Chiba, Japan).
Which female artists are you currently promoting?
For my generation, it would be Mio Yamato and Aya Kawato, and for a slightly older generation, it would be Aiko Tezuka.
