Shohei Sawai
Artist Statement
Through various things we see in everyday life, I try to express the atmosphere of the present era in Japan where coexisting the nativeness and the globalism.
The main motif is stemming from the image and the knowledge through books and internet, the strangers on the street or familiar persons, the outside and indoor scenery, a memory, as well as the words hit on me.
Various cultures and values are mixed and tuned, resulting temporary into the most efficient spot on which our everyday life is constructed. It’s not at all boring to watch those scenes, which show us very rich expressions; frivolous and powerful, unreasonable and logical, truthful and artificial, all at the same time.
Unlike seeing with the naked eye, or watching as photography, the paintings can unexpectedly reveal the cool and humoristic aspect of our most mundane scenery.
The picture of a tatami mat, flooring, and a lawn floating in the space is the imaginary made by condensing and reconstituting the motif which I got in everyday life. I picture subjectively while adding my own delusion.
It is a viewpoint overlooking the space from the top diagonal like a video game screen. The space with a wide-open view, but not connected. "iPhone on the tatami mat" represents the coexistence of aboriginal lifestyle and globalism. By not having any specific knowledge, I omit electricity and water supply things, as well as the building structure, leaving intentionally as a gray solid cube. In such a way, I express my actual feeling of living without knowing them.
Small work size and the simple display form express an admiration for certain naiveté and sanity that the paintings had before Abstract Expressionism and the invention of conceptual art.
Tokyo November 2014
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