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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Japan

Untitled

Geometry:  To measure or survey the earth. A branch of mathematics that deals with the measurement, properties and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces and solids.

I decided that from these definition, to figuratively talk about the emptiness and its outer limits. The possibilities of connection and/or communication therein. Self-confinement and solitude. Intolerance.

My work is a product of my constant preoccupation about the quality of our lives. A continuous analysis and search of confrontation – questioning.

Therefore, in my work one should be able to see the structure, shape, feel the materials, and most importantly, the reason behind it.

A work that occupies at the same time a space and another more subjective one.

The analysis should not stop at the level of the elements that constitute my work, but should further try to see, or feel what links keep it together.

Those links give the various elements their true meaning, their reason to be and why they occupy such space in that order… and how they change in the mind of the viewer, thus becoming a silent accomplice of the artist.

Untitled

Geometry:  To measure or survey the earth. A branch of mathematics that deals with the measurement, properties and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces and solids.

I decided that from these definition, to figuratively talk about the emptiness and its outer limits. The possibilities of connection and/or communication therein. Self-confinement and solitude. Intolerance.

My work is a product of my constant preoccupation about the quality of our lives. A continuous analysis and search of confrontation – questioning.

Therefore, in my work one should be able to see the structure, shape, feel the materials, and most importantly, the reason behind it.

A work that occupies at the same time a space and another more subjective one.

The analysis should not stop at the level of the elements that constitute my work, but should further try to see, or feel what links keep it together.

Those links give the various elements their true meaning, their reason to be and why they occupy such space in that order… and how they change in the mind of the viewer, thus becoming a silent accomplice of the artist.

A Cricket

I used to think, in my childhood, if the wonder and beauty of flowers I see is the same as the one my playmate sees. Though I regard their color as ‘yellow’ and so does she, can our ‘yellow’ be the same?

When you see an object, you see not only it itself, but also some experience and memory which you picture to yourself by seeing it. If the brightness you see is different from one I see, and if so, are the views, the climate and the smells you have seen and sensed also different? This work of mine you’re looking at may be different from the way I see it.

But such a difference can make our lives more complicated and richer and reveal who we are.

Pandora’s Box

Where do my thoughts and language come from?

Do they arise out of a chaotic flux of sensations and mental images? Are there some rules or a deep structure underlying this apparent chaos? Is the Right Brain, more intuitive part,  more closely related to the unconscious (if there is such a thing) than the Left, logical, verbal part of the brain? My painting suggests these questions to me. I wonder how the part of me that knows is related to the part of me that doesn’t know what it knows.

In making this box for Women Beyond Borders I am reminded of that wonderfully curious woman, Pandora, who for centuries has been, to my way of thinking, erroneously blamed for all evils on earth. I discovered there’s another version of the story, and it goes like this:

The box which she opened contained everything that was good, and when, (against her husband’s advice) she raised the lid, ALL THAT WAS GOOD escaped out into the world. I like this story and think it’s a fine metaphor for the creative, open-minded nature of womankind.

Missing Piece

To me, a basic unchanging form is the most beautiful, no matter what period of art you are examining. For any material or event there exists a basic framework. Within this basic frame, there exists a core which comes through the work of art above all else.

I use many materials, but I especially like to use materials with soul in them. I then strive to create a work in which the essence of the materials shows through. I would like to create artwork with a central form of happiness, pain, or sadness.

Sea Dream

When I set out to create something I try to draw in the season and the place I find myself.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter – I like things that evoke the seasons. I have packed a little box with memories – marine blue skies, turquoise seas, white corals, green jungles, so that the fragrance of summer can tickle your nostrils too!

Celebrate the Meeting of Life…

I am attracted to the fine color of the dawn, sunbeams flickering through the leaves, broad colorful sunsets,  stars shining in the sky…the mysterious harmony of all these things, so this is what I try to make.

I love both light and darkness, and wish to celebrate the splendid harmony of their meeting. I hope opening this ‘box’ will lead you to see the harmony of light and darkness… and the meeting of you and me, or anyone.

Mimo

Now, we humankind encounter a life crisis that we have never met before. This crisis may have been brought upon by the competition for “superiority” and “profit” for such things which each person belongs to, as the nation, peoples and sex…etc. I wonder how we can surmount this serious condition? Can we evade the collapse and find out the light of hope in the twenty-first century?

A primitive man held awe and respect to the universe and nature. We should bring them to life intensely and lower our head and pray sincerely to them. The ancients prayed for the approach to the sacred thing through praying. We should also learn a lesson from their wisdom.

Now each of us must be in immediate need of breaking our little shell of ego and appearing as our universal or spiritual soul which sleeps undeveloped in deep layers.

Painting, building, singing and dancing…these acts are also a prayer itself, I believe.

Make a Rhythm Called Silence Next to Transfiguration

Soundless loud voice
Silent move
If no sound is the loudest noise which someone gives,
Silence is an allegory only for some.

Organisms bring silence, rhythm and perfection. The shape of the organism and the balance of energy is given out by the organism through me, naturally.

Why is the shape made by nature so fluent in spite of taciturnity? It may be a wrong thing to deform a complete thing by making over it as a work. But I think that meeting the “thing” is going to be much wider by adding my power and moving the space.

A space has energy, resonates with energy from objects, makes a noise and rhythm, hops, bumps, and bursts open. The organisms soundlessly cross between their energy and ours.

To embody “the voice” is my hope, and it is pleasant to have a relationship with it through my work.

The Distance from Time #2

In Japan it is believed that people are able to keep supernatural, mysterious and precious things in a box. It is prohibited to show them to anyone.

When the lid of the box is raised, it is supernatural and mysterious time, isn’t it?

Additional boxes by same artist

Modoka Hirata, The Distance from Time # 1