Special exhibition “Idemitsu Art Award Artist Selection 2020”

When facing a painting as a viewer, there are many points to enjoy, one of which is the texture of the material. Not too long ago, Tamotsu Ikeya was presenting works that stimulated the brain with a variety of textures that appeared naturally on the screen, and evoked a tactile sensation even though you couldn't actually touch the screen. was there. Regardless of the individual's consciousness or self-awareness, for Ikeya, the process of painting is a dialogue with materials such as canvas and paint. If until a few years ago, the dialogue was a “fight,” with even glimpses of provocative gestures, these days it feels more like a “play.” Instead of being so frightened by the opponent's actions like before, I can say that I have relaxed and am able to enjoy the opponent's reactions. Of course, there is no correct answer. I'm looking forward to the texture of a different type of matière that is born from a series of tension and relaxation.

Lines carved into indelible grooves and traces, images that seem stiff and hard to move... However, this printmaker transforms them in many ways and irreversibly diverges them, sometimes creating a montage on a single sheet of paper of many different types of images that are created in the process, and memories = traces. Each time I print, I try to confirm the contingency of possible configurations. Chung Daeun was born in South Korea the year after the Seoul Olympics, eventually entered art school in Tokyo, completed military service while attending school, and then went to study abroad in Berlin, where the wall still remains after it collapsed in 1989, coincidentally the year of his birth. Printmaker. In his copperplate prints, there are glimmers of the paintings of Germans who bear the memory of the division between East and West, especially the works of Neo Rauch and others who came from the East rather than the West. However, Chong's version, which often acts as a delicate receptor and transducer for images that harbor negative memories, does not particularly sharpen and amplify the distortions and contradictions hidden in history = stories. Nor does it merely cynically ridicule and caricature the myths and beliefs that give unjust justice to violence. Rather, it is a medium that allegorically plasticizes the memories that have been imprinted on them without making them rigid, allowing them to be unraveled almost in rhythm. There are memories, traces, that only he can unravel. I'm kind of convinced of that.

Ai Naruyama's works are a combination of abstract expression and figurative imagery in an exquisite balance. Since the establishment of abstract expression in the early 20th century, individual artists have sought originality, using the theory advocated by Greenberg that recognized flatness as a characteristic of painting as a starting point, and have continued to pursue abstract expression. The battle between concrete images has continued. Naruyama's works seem to be connected to that lineage, but this is not the case. Some of the layered images that make up her work probably originate from the web. The incorporation of these images, which cannot be called abstract or concrete, seems to overlap in a way that is separate from the artist's consciousness. By inviting entities that are unrelated to individual will into his works, Naruyama reveals a very contemporary worldview.