I am an observer curious about the truths of the world. To understand the cosmological principles, everything in the inner world and outer world can be the target of observation.
Let’s take a look at buds that always sprout in the spring, males that devote themselves to get chosen by the females, humans that accumulate money and fame like living eternally while saying that love is all, and the earth that sends warning signals in numbers of aspects due to climate changes. As I open the door and take a look into myself, I take a moment to observe my shameful and poor thoughts and emotions as well as bodily senses that I cannot hide.
One day, I was continuing repeated works absent-mindedly and I could see the identifiable images from the clouds where hints from fragments of memories and observation float around disorderedly. That was the moment when I realized the concept of life.
As I collected information together, I realized that the will to live fundamentally exists in the roots of desires and behaviors of all living organisms. The psychoanalysts call energy that sustains life as “Libido” and I could understand the meaning of libido with my whole heart for the first time.
The life energy called “Libido” is very powerful and it is the instinct of living organisms. Even a rational human may have selfish and violent animal instinct at any time once his or her existence is threatened. The anguish that had been happening in my mind was not the one that had to be ignored and suppressed. Instead, it was the natural stream of thoughts as an animal.
Then, it felt like removing a great load off my minds. It was okay to think in such way. It felt like I found the truth. Being carefree, behaving rather selfishly and violently, seeking pleasure at all times, and expressing the emotions frankly were how I was like in youthful days before socialization. These days, I find myself getting closer to a carefree child. Such change is also influencing on my works.
I am a living organism and an artist with the instinct for survival. As an artist, I wanted to express this interesting truth in my works. Now, it is the time to express the aliveness. First, I focused on myself as a living organism. I expressed the living emotions and senses I perceived with my body and head into visual forms. Secondly, I expressed the living organisms and the world. Here, the common features of living organisms including movement, breathing, growth, reproduction, breeding, absorption, and emission are expressed in the keyword of “Vitality”. Since the self, living organisms, and the world share numbers of similar features along with vague boundary, they are mixed together in the works. This mixture is named the “Living Mass”.
To express the living mass visually, I mainly used the “Clay” with higher moldability and plasticity. In my works, I simplified the humans or animals, created mass-like forms with clays, and covered the surface with clay pellets, small and miscellaneous easily accessible matters, and materials with interesting textures in an irregular way. I also expressed the mass mainly with primary colors as well as curves with smooth contours so that the mass would seem like a slow living organisms.
Recently, I am also using matters that are used in people’s daily lives or matters that are thrown away. The themes associated with disappearance and death faintly reminds of the memories of “Aliveness” in contrast to disappearance and death.
In expression of the living mass in drawing, I used metaphorical images which seem rather simple and wicked for more intuitive
feelings. The drawings are characterized by the gathering of numerous grains and wavy lines. These features are inspired by the microscopic world observed by a microscope. When you observe a static object with a microscope, tiny substances are actively moving inside the object. This is similar to observing the earth from the space.
Then, why did I get interested in the natural state of aliveness? It was around 30. I went through symptoms of body aging and such symptoms led to thoughts about the death. I realized that I was a living organism who cannot forever. Isn’t it too pathetic that the universe that we are wholly aware of disappears? Still, enriching own universe and meeting other universes that are the same or
different is such a pleasant experience. So, I hope everyone would love each other and feel aliveness throughout the life.
