I majored in oriental painting and was fascinated by sumi-e (水墨) portraits. In oriental painting, the spread of ink is important, and skilled brushwork is important, but when it comes to paintings featuring people, I thought that the most important thing was the affectionate gaze toward them from the observer’s perspective. I even felt ashamed of my previous paintings that had put too much emphasis on the expression itself and put a lot of effort into them. From then on, I put away all the materials I had prepared while holding the camera and posing for work, and started working again by lightly drawing the people I loved with my mind’s eye. I thought that the way oriental painting is expressed through lines had a lot in common with cartoons, and I could feel that the distorted and satirical forms created by repeated drawings were more appealing. The characters in my paintings have exaggerated expressions and childlike faces. They express the wounded egos of modern people that everyone has and that need to be protected. Having spent a long time with animals, I have come to sympathize with Mencius’s theory of human nature being good. However, when suffering and being cornered, the instinct to protect oneself, whether human or animal, also comes out. It is not easy to live while maintaining goodness in the modern materialistic society. When I draw, I always think about the role that paintings have in the world. Art is something that is not obligated or forced, but because it is not, it is also something that is easily and unnecessarily dismissed. I hope that my paintings can bring out that goodness, even though they are subtle and momentary, and I look forward to sincere communication with the viewer who discovers their own image in the paintings. Many people appear in my paintings. They are our own images.
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