Curator FArthur Takehara
ProducerFKentaro Chiba
16th September- 26th September
15:00-20:00
Opening Reception :19th September18:00`
¦This show is the second in three serial exhibitions
venue: Art Lab Akiba
A day in the summer@2015
27 x 32.5cm cotten, plaster and mineral pigments on panel
Artist's statement
I employ material, cotton, plaster and mineral pigments in the works in this exhibition. These are drastically different from the materials - paper and charcoal - used in the previous exhibition ‘Scapeology on the seashore T’.
The reasons for this change stem from the fact that I was dissatisfied with the monotonous texture of the paper surface and I wished to create substrates. Before the industrial revolution any canvas for paintings was made of handmade spun thread and weaving. I therefore decided to weave the canvas on which to paint.
The process began with finding suitable cotton thread, and then weaving it with a loom. I then made a ground layer with plaster on the woven cotton. The choice of plaster was the result of a process of experimentation to discover the ideal material for the ground, one which would produce good conditions for the pigments and also retain the surface cotton texture.
Following a suggestion from Mr. Chiba I decided to use Natural pigment rather than acrylic’ even though this produced more difficulties.
It wasn't difficult to decide to Create from zero on my own as far as possible but the actual practice is different. Through an engagement with materials and a reflexive approach I felt it became a splendid process, the creation of a painting from the very beginning.
The aspect of my internal world encapsulated in ‘scapeology on the seashore’ together with a harmony with the external world, process as repetition-meditation, exists in the process of creating cloth. These are the concepts I would like to reflect in my present works.
Kou Uchimura