What is the personal character, or individual background for me as a Japanese painter? I ask this question more intentionally now. I have always been searching for this in my painting, my way of making art, and myself. But unfortunately I have not yet been able to clearly articulate it.
The past 3 and a half years I live in the Netherlands. Before that, I was working for about 10 years as a painter in Japan. But I have never been satisfied with my paintings and myself. Because I was always feeling that I am copying or mimicking someone’s work or techniques in my work. (But of course I have never considered that I am copying somebody. It happened subconsciously. But afterwards I have often felt this.) I wanted to find in my painting something not similar to others, or that which I didn’t feel I have seen before. But it hadn’t happened yet.
Since I moved to the Netherlands February 2006, I tried to start to look to establish my painting. And I also wanted to change my situation in a different country, wanting to find another process of making my paintings. Up until now, in this three and half years, I have found/learned a lot of things about different perspectives and ways of thinking. And in my mind is it becoming more clear and I am more conscious about my self and my painting. And I do not feel that I am mimicking the art-work of somebody anymore.
Recently, I found another question about my personal characteristic as a JAPANESE. I am still 100 % physically Japanese. But my mind and perspective is not 100 percent Japanese anymore. Because I have already mixed up my perspective between East and West in this country. Then afterwards I started thinking about what is typically Japanese in my work and my character ?
What is the largest Japanese element or Japanese sensibility in my work? How I am using this Japanese character for my painting? Japan is my country, which is established culturally and economically. Their cultural structure is not typically Asian. But it is indeed not Western. The contemporary Japan is a culturally blended country between East and West.
They extract only a necessary thing from an original thing, and are skillful in the remaking of them. The original meaning and the story are lost, and the regenerated thing is changed into an ambiguous existence. And, ambiguous existence is a very convenient form for the Japanese. Because the Japanese have their own aesthetic sensibility to an ambiguous expression. When they imitate it, they value the superficial aspect, because an original meaning and the story are too heavy for a superficial structure. I think that the character of this imitation is one Japanese feature.
I found this my behavior exactly like I have done before, but not that I am still doing it now. In my past years I was growing up in this characteristic Japanese society. Then I have somehow inevitably established this mentality and ability as a Japanese. Of course I cannot say that every Japanese has the same mentality or ability. But I am thinking that it is definitely part of my fundamental character as a Japanese artist.
After I having discovered it, I am becoming more conscious of how I can I use those imitating aspects for my painting. Actually I was never satisfied before when I found mimicking essences in my work. But now, I try to essentially mimic and copy in my painting as a conscious gesture.
I will try to make four small-sized paintings in id11 in Delft. And I will try to imitate something from the apartment or the environment of id11 in Delft. I am curious to find out how I mimic and copy in my painting in Delft as a Japanese painter.
Hidenori Mitsue 6/25/09
Coming to Delft with my trunk
Canvases with paint materials in the 603
Self portrait
Before transformation
After transformation
Bag and canvases.
Ready to paint
Finished two backgrounds
From another room
Finished four backgrounds
Subject 1
Subject 2
Painted subject
Paints
Close up
Keep distance
My hands
Painting horse head
One
Two
Three
behind
Detail of horse head
Detail of background
Detail of house hair
Roses 1
Horse head
Roses 2
Roses 3
Detail of Roses 3
Detail of Roses 2
Detail of horse head
Vegetable and feta cheese Salad
Chick pea and mango Thai curry
It was an intense time to work at id11. And it is actually not an ordinary working progress to work at a site-specific space for me. But I have found a couple remarkable discoveries during my residence. I tried to make four paintings with three different subjects, which I had found at flat 603. One is the artificial rose in the red color of vase. Another is a horse picture from wallpaper in 603. The last one is part of landscape picture with a mountain and a house in the woods. I tried to copy those images for my paintings. Finally I have used two images as subjects: “roses” and “horse”. I did not have any emotional sense or thoughts about those images. But I have found them a little bit ridiculous of feeling.
Two of them are totally artificial materials. Roses and the red color vase are actually quite beautiful, but it has a total plastic sense. To me it also has a strange balance between real and fake. But this fake rose makes me also “alive”. When I was visiting flat 603, I was feeling sad. Because the empty space reminds me about past times.
I did not have the sense of the previous family who lived there though I did not feel loneliness in the room of 603 so much because my colleagues had already worked there.
And, I began to look for subjects to be able to do the things I treated in my painting at 603. Coincidently, I also had some a strange, interesting subjects (Could be an interesting sense from the previous owner) there and I decided to use them for the subject right away.
My idea was how to transform the subject of these borrowed things into the subject of my painting in a superficial way. And, only this transformation was a distance of “Imitation” that I am considering now. The imitations have been changed into the one where the meaning was quite different because of my painting though rose and horse’s subjects are the one used from the room of 603.
I do not know their personal stories at all. No, I am not even curious to know their personal stories. It is enough only to have superficial information for me. The feature I regard as Japanese is this adaptability of the surface.
However, rose and horse’s paintings are proof that I worked at 603. I am not packing an emotional sense and own story in my paintings. However, I think that only my paintings where the surface works are sincere behavior to my present painting.
These are not results. And it is not an answer. However, this is one of the trips that I look for my position as a Japanese painter between the art world and my life.