2024

Group  Exhibition: Curated by O JUN “World of Bliss and Misery : Dat + ISHII Yuuka + YAMAWAKI Kosuke + O JUN” /「O JUNキュレーション展「幸福惨憺世界：Dat+石井佑果+山脇紘資+O JUN」

Gallery: MIZUMA ART GALLERY

Exhibition Details / 展覧会の詳細

Exhibition Text・展覧会テキスト

[Critical Text : O JUN]
Yamawaki Kousuke paints frontal views of animals’ faces. Filling out more or less the entire canvases, the fur is painted as if caressing layer upon layer, and appears in hues comparable to those of an oil film on a wet street, while the eyes are two light spots on the same level on both sides of the head. Even though each of them – be it a wolf, a goat or a bird – is painted to be recognizable as what it is, they all look equally unnatural. A painter’s technique and style, defined through a mixture of his or her feelings, ideas and actions, can be realized by way of reproducible, personified or reflective images, and the fact that such artificial and unnatural reflections and expressions also exist and work within “human” nature, is what the eyes of the animals in Yamawaki’s paintings are gazing at. I remember how I once stood in front of a painting of a goat’s head at his exhibition, and I somehow didn’t feel comfortable as I kept looking at it. It seemed to me as if the goat wasn’t looking at me, but it was looking through me. When I turned around, I noticed that there was a painting of another animal on the wall behind me. Caught in an infinity mirror of sorts and pierced by the eyes on both sides, I was unable to stay there long and therefore left the exhibition rather soon. This was probably the rare experience of someone who stepped into the trap that had been set up between the paintings and the viewer.

山脇紘資は動物の顔を正面から描く。ほぼ画面全体を覆う体毛の筆触は幾層にも撫で重ね描きおこされる。その毛並みは、濡れた路面に張るガソリン油膜のようなグラデーションを見せる。頭部左右同線上に並ぶ二つの光点は両眼だ。描かれる姿も造作も識別しながら狼も山羊も鳥もどれもとても均等に不自然だ。自らの欲望と意志と行為による撹拌の末に生成されてゆく画家の技法と様式は、再現、擬人、鏡像のそれぞれをイメージ上で実現させ得るが、それら作為的で不自然な反映や表出をも”人”の自然性の内にあって機動することを山脇の描く動物の目は見据えている。以前、彼の個展会場で山羊の首の絵の前に立って見ていたのだが私はどうにも落ち着かない気持ちになったことがあった。山羊の眼差しは私を見ていない。私を貫通しているように思えた。振り向くと背後の壁にも動物の絵が掛かっている。合わせ鏡の間に迷い込んだ私は二頭の視線に貫かれ居た堪れなくなって早々に会場を出た。絵と見る者の間に仕掛けられたワナにはまった私の稀なる鑑賞体験ということだろう。

O JUN