作家インタビュー｜ホキ美術館「レッツトラベル！絵の中を旅しよう」展

Let me see. How can I explain this well for you to understand what I am thinking. I believe that there are stories to everything. And I like things and thoughts like the double world and illusions and those kinds of things. Let's talk about the difference between Europe and the United States. I feel that the view of the United States has no history of people. The view of Europe has this feeling of something that has been raised. At least, that is how I feel.

Let's say there is a little stone rolling around in the city of Kyoto. Little while ago, Isami Kondo tripped over that stone. And 250 years ago, Mitsuhide Akechi tripped over on that same stone. And a few more years back, Yoshinaka Kiso tripped over that same stone. That is the history there. What I wanted to do is not express something totally new, something that I have been facing for a long time in a sense of a different world that exists.

View of the different world that I have been facing

Ryo Shiotani

Born in Tokyo, 1975. Musashino Art University Oil Painting Major, after graduating study abroad in Italy. Assigned to Agency for Cultural Affairs Emerging Art Overseas Training in Florence.

Member of Niki-kai. Professor of Kyushu Sangyo University Faculty of Arts, Adjunct instructor of Nihon University Faculty of Arts.

Toshihiro Ohata

Born in Shimane Prefecture in 1960. Completed graduate school at Tokyo University of the Arts. Illustrated the newspaper novel "Tengai no Hana" (written by Tomiko Miyao) (1996).
Received the Hakusuikai Award (1988) and the Minister of Education's Encouragement Award for his first exhibit.
Kanji Maeda Grand Prize Exhibition Semi-Grand Prize (2001). Received the Prime Minister's Award at Hakujitsuten (2007). Currently a member of Hakujitsukai.

Fumihiko Gomi

Born in Nagano in 1953. Graduated Musashino Art University Faculty of Art and Design, Oil painting Major

2005 Hakuchikai Prime Minister's Award. 2018 MEAN Hoki Museum Exhibition.

Delicate and detailed still image paintings to abyss landscape paintings, novelty portraits. Always searching for new ways for realistic painting.

So when I saw the area of the tree spirit, I went into the forest when I was a child. You know there is a word "Animism". You become a part of a nature, you feel somewhat comfortable and there is a story there. And you are integrated into that nature and story.

The tree drawn in tree spirit is not a tree that I actually saw.

That is something inside my head. It's something that was made up inside my thoughts and memory of mine.

That's what I'm talking about. So what I did was I borrowed the shape, and I made a memory inside me.

Tee Spirit is a story that has been integrated naturally

Tree spirit is something that is alway inside me. So I made it into an existing shape of what was there.

For example, you felt very sad when you were a little child. Let's say you had some trouble with your friend, and you walk into a forest alone may be right by the school. You're walking into the woods, feeling sad and angry, ruinanting those feelings and turning that into a shape.

So what I did was make memories from the past and create that world. When I saw that motif, it just came very naturally. Which is a world from the past.

A world that has been created ruinanting memory

What I had a hard time on was those leaves on the bottom. That is something physically hard. It's fun to paint but it does take a lot of work.

Talking about something else, there is a French amateur painter called Henri Rousseau. He draws simple sketches of plants in botanical gardens, lions in the jungle, he draws an imaginary world as if he is there. I feel very similar to that. Every weed is a story to me.

Every weed is a story to me

To be honest, I don't like going out. I don't like making plans. So I haven't been going on a trip or traveling for a while. It's not a trip but my first time going to Tokyo was in my last year in my elementary school for a graduation trip. I felt like going to Mars. I went by blunt train. That is still strongly in my impression

I like places like mazes. Cities in middle age Europe. Which is somewhat messy. Same for Japan too. Old worn out cities. Narrow streets behind the main streets. I like going into those streets and taking a walk, forgetting about the time. It's a trip to a mysterious world very close to sense of none. Morocco sounds interesting, especially from Europe.

I don't like taking tools for keeping a record of the trip. To be honest, I hate taking pictures. You see that everyone is taking pictures at tourist sites. Snap here, snap there, everywhere.

When my wife asks me to take a picture, I would use a cell phone and take a few pictures but I think it is all about what you feel there. That's why I don't take them.

In the maze you can feel something similar to feeling nothing and travel around mysterious world

I like the view of the sunset from travering. But too bad that sunset paintings don't sell well.

If so, I like mazes. Waterway in Venice is good. That is like a maze. Italy's untidy middle age towns are good as well. That maze is good also.

Thinking about it realistically, I don't paint many views but if I were to paint, I'd like to paint a view of sunset.

The sun is blazing golden between the clouds, and the angels are playing music loudly, you have to run or else the sun will sink down, making you feel that you have to hurry up.

Angel's stairs which is a ray of lights throughout between the clouds. Just like that. That is a good view.