Special exhibition “Idemitsu Art Award Artist Selection 2022”

Yasuya Kurashiki's works are of various types, including those that include performance elements and those that are created using three-dimensional structures. Among them, “Transition #Ophelia” and “Transition #Salome” are two-dimensional works that combine and transfer other existing images of modern Japan to paintings from art history, creating works with a slightly rough impression. It is a work.
Ophelia is a character in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, and Salome is a character in the New Testament. She has been depicted in plays and paintings as a woman who is obsessed with madness because she is trying to get her will through. Kurashiki recognizes here the image of women who have been sacrificed in the old male-centered society. The bodies of women appearing in adult videos are then superimposed on the images of women created by the convenience of heterosexual men in modern society. In addition to being a critical approach to the history of painting, this work can also be seen as an expression of self-reflection, thinking that, as a woman, she is also in the position of repeating the same history.

The works of Misono Nakao, who studied conservation and restoration at graduate school and has skills in copying classical paintings, are often exhibited in the form of picture scrolls and hanging scrolls, which are expressed using traditional Japanese painting techniques. What she is interested in painting are things that have disappeared or are disappearing. They are carefully observed and copied onto paper. The individual works created through so-called “research” appear to be placed very quietly or gracefully on display stands or in cases. Rather than being harsh, the things depicted there look so lively that you can almost feel the rustle at times, as if they are about to dance on the paper, and are very passionate. Nowadays, we can easily take pictures of everything with smartphones and keep them as records, but she still makes detailed hand-drawn copies of things. However, it does not end when a perfect copy is made. From there, the expression of my own work develops, culminating in an installation that is perfect. I'm looking forward to seeing what Nakao is trying to breathe life into again this time.

When I first saw Rie Nagai's work, at first glance it looked like a Japanese painting that an art college student might have painted. While attempting to update the genre of “Japanese paintings” by depicting modern everyday motifs such as roads with guardrails, cars, and glass bottles, rather than the traditional depictions of flowers, birds, wind, and the moon, he also created carefully drawn landscapes and The figurative nature of the still life is a painting that seems to have become stylized without breaking the frame. However, as I watched the silver color of the foil and the red color of the pigment used intertwine on a large screen, I began to feel that there was more to Nagai's work than just that. This seemed to be due to the expanse of the space depicted, and it also seemed to be due to the emptiness of the lack of people in places where many people should have gathered and passed around. After winning the Shell Art Prize in 2016, he stayed in Berlin to create art in 2019. I recommended him with high hopes for how his experiences in Berlin influenced his work.

Without fear of misunderstanding, I sometimes think that it is okay for artistic expression to have the freedom to not have anything to do with reality. It is precisely because the reality is so harsh that we want to think about the possibility of expression as an imaginary asir (shelter), rather than a form of comfort or diversion. You can feel a glimpse of this in the painting spaces that Mr. Fukuda depicts. In most cases, some kind of isolated motif is depicted in a gray space. Although the boundary between space and motif is vague, it is not indistinct; the carefully layered brushstrokes depict invisible elements, such as the rustling of the flowing air or the minute trembling of the motif. It seems to be a process of looking at vague mental anxieties, giving them form, and overcoming them. Space is not closed. Most of the paintings depict windows, holes, and rays of light that seem to be streaming in, suggesting an outside world. The motif may eventually go out. Then another motif comes into the painting space. I guess it's just a repetition.