BIOGRAPHY
It was in 1985 when I was still a student. I was studying oil painting then and soon became obsessed with collage which I have started, wanting to know how shape, size and texture of coloured surface affects the picture. I was very much interested in the effects gained by the clashes of heterogeneous objects. It creates discomfort, yet some parts do fit in, connect with each other and form new images.
At the same time, as I have talked with many people and read about many things, I realized that ‘ I ’ (self) was a very uncertain subject. What is in my ‘self’ in the first place? Maybe there is nothing in it. Where is the border of my ‘self’? and from where do I become someone else? Carrying this question, my paintings start to look like something without concrete truth.
And in this case, collage was an effective way for me to keep distance from ‘self’.
At first, I was making images of people by sticking together clippings from magazines, and started to make art works combining driftwood pieces and plaster as I wanted to make something more three-dimensional. Failing to get an appropriate consequence by making the works three-dimensional and also facing a new situation after graduation which caused some confusion in life made me unable to work for 5 years.
Finally in 1994, I regained my peace of mind and re-started my work, sticking together clippings from magazines as before. But this time, I was concentrating on pictorial art as much as possible… I have chosen the technique of decalcomania as means of keeping a distance from ‘self’.
From 1997, I started presenting my works every year. At the same time, I was making collage work based on images of existing art works as Cezanne and Vermeer. This was because I wanted to focus on sticking and moreover, I wanted to avoid my ‘self’ to choose the subject.
However, since about 1998 I began to choose my surrounding sceneries as subject for my work. Nearby forest and cherry trees, gardens of azaleas and bayberries became my new subjects. Peaceful life had put me in this situation making me be aware of my surroundings. I was attracted to face things which gave off some lights outside my ‘self’ instead of looking inside my ‘self’ which have always been uncertain in itself.
Until 2000, I have met many attractive sceneries which made me think like this… ‘‘These are certainly attractive but they happen to show their true self in the slightest moment and disappear the very next moment. For my uncertain ‘self’ it is not possible to catch those moments yet it must be possible to face the fact that they ‘appear and disappear’’
This made me think that it was alright to take in uncertain ‘self’ in my work. Since then I have started to take in ‘uncertain self’ more and more not only in the subject but also in technical aspect. Since about 2008 as a manifestation of this change, I began to ‘draw’ as well as to ‘stick’. I deliberately used illusions to reproduce the images gained by my ‘uncertain self’ in purpose. And at the same time, I try to look at it relatively. However, since after 2010 different idea has settled in me. Surely ‘self’ was an uncertain subject and because of that, I have always failed to catch attractive sceneries but this does not mean I can never reach the truth of them. I feel that I have met a few people and art works which have reached the truth without tripping over such questions as ‘What is in myself?’ or ‘What makes me different from others?’