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ARTIST STATEMENT
 

When we look at a painting, we, too, find ourselves being looked back at by the painting.
What exists there is not a fixed “seeing/being seen” relationship. Just as inhaling and exhaling alternate to form a single breath, seeing and being seen merge into one another, maintaining the connection between us and the world.
What emerges in the very midst of that breath is a state in which the world and I are not yet separated—a state that predates the emergence of words or judgments. It is, so to speak, a moment of “undifferentiated subject and object.” It is precisely in such “experiences as they are” that I find the potential of painting.


The act of painting, space, light, time, and memory—these do not exist in isolation. Though they contain contradictions, they envelop one another within a single, vast interconnection. When all of these are seamlessly united, a “place” emerges that transcends subject and object.
What I seek to create is not painting that merely represents things, but painting that evokes that “place” where the distinction between seeing and being seen dissolves.

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Tomonari Nakayashiki

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