Rose Castle

Size : left 65.7″x147.2″(166.8×373.8)cm　right 65.7″x147.2″(166.8×373.8)cm
Material : graphite on traditional Japanese paper, rub-on copper powder (GOLD LEAF.ACRYLIC,GRAPHITE)
2014

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This work was commissioned for an exhibition celebrating the 300-year anniversary of 17th century Japanese painter Ogata Kōrin.

While Ogata Kōrin is the most prominent representative of the Rinpa school,
Rinpa is particularly noteworthy for characteristics that were transmitted through the works regardless of the master-apprentice lines.

Ogata Kōrin reconfigured and reinterpreted subject matter and composition, the process which established this artistic direction and that encapsulates its very essence.

Recent years have brought tremendous advances in the field of virtual reality,
so much so that the arrival of simulated realities seems inevitable.

Imagine a city afloat in a virtual space where multitudes of distant people tele-exist,
see the white and red light of electric signals pulsing through this cyber-metropolis.
If an Ogata Kōrin of several centuries hence were to paint this nightscape,
perhaps it would look like this version of his Red and White Plum Blossoms folding screen.

Instead of Kōrin’s plum blossoms, I chose roses, imagining the crimson white of electronic transmissions emitted by the city.
It seems just like a rose castle, thus the title.

Time has the tendency to erase even the longest-lived constructs, be they artistic or philosophical.
Hold on to them too dearly and the act of imitation itself acquires meaning, exclusive status is preserved, limitation reigns.

My starting point is that even the march of time leaves some universal value unchanged,
an axiom which can be applied to future constructs, expressed and expanded upon.

In growing this will to decode the nature’s universals lies the very basis of human progress.