ESSAYS

03/ Decalcomania - What I Relay on

More I Draw the Worse it Gets…?

 ‘Freshness of work’ was the words Mr. S was using, who taught me art. If you want to do something… If you feel that, you should go straight ahead towards what you want to do and do it at once while the feeling is still vivid… The expression done by this way is not only fresh but it is also refreshing, and it is one of the elements that makes an art expression ‘good’.

Now, what I am dealing now is ‘the way in which what you see in front of you now is shaken up at some point by some trigger’, and what makes those things you are seeing the way they are is the ‘way you see and perceive’, which is being the reason of decision for ‘good’. So I need to keep on asking the questions and to say ‘no’ to all the ‘good’ that are emanated casually where I am.

Having say that, this ‘constantly asking questions and saying no’ can mean to knead and stroke around and make the expressions tepid. This is hard for those who are deeply steeped in modern sensibilities…

But being aware of it, I dare to say that is this tepidness something really ‘bad’? It may change into something ‘good’ by our surprise according to time and circumstances. We never know one day one might have a conversation in front of an art work saying ‘I like this tepidness…’.

To Stand Where Things Are not Clear

Again, I shall talk about Mr. S. He was someone who would always say ‘You should be clear’. ‘To be clear’ is ‘to know what one wants’, and if this ‘what one wants’ is vague the expression becomes weak. Mr. S always wanted to see strong expressions. I have also wanted to create strong expressions if I ought to do art, and have always told myself to be clear about what I want…

But from some point, I started to think that the place, where I can be clear, was completely unreachable. This feeling inside me was gradually getting stronger, and now after being open about it, I think I can only make things by looking ‘clearly’ at myself  ‘being not clear about what I want’.

What this means… ‘How I draw’ a picture relates to ‘how I have been drawing’ and more to say ‘how the picture had been drawn’ by people including me. In other words, it depends on the way we see and perceive things. It does not matter if one would accept it or not, but we have to be inside the way we see and perceive things to be able to clearly express in words what we want to do.

So now, Things seen in front of my eyes are shaken up and give a glimpse of something different. This is because those ‘things’ come from outside the way I see and perceive. In other words, they are outside of my view of the world that I have been relying on.

If I ought to continue handling this ‘things seen in front of my eyes are shaken up and give a glimpse of something different’, ‘to be clear’ would be something that is almost impossible.

Coincidence May Be the Only Thing We Can Rely on

Pressing the paper against the paints that are squeezed and spread out on the palette brings an encounter with the unexpected expression of the paints. When I think back, the reason was not at all special why I have started making countless pieces of paper and stick them together using technique of decalcomania to make an art work. I didn’t know what I ought to do. Anyway, I needed something tangible. I thought I could manage to just copy the paints onto the paper…

With these guilty consciences, I have been continuing this technique and have realised one day. It was that the ‘coincidence may be the only thing we can rely on’

As I said earlier that to draw is to spend a long time with ‘how I had been drawing till now’ and ‘how people including me have been drawing’. It is, after all, I need to deal with ‘the way to see and perceive’ that I am based on now. To take them seriously and to continue to question them means to lose a clue. It is to stroke only the surface and the expression just turn round and round the same place. In other words, the expression tends to become ‘tepid’.

Coincidences come from outside and light a fire under this monotonous repetition. It is indispensable in order to revive the expressions.

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