ART LIVES TORIDE Where Art Is Born

I loved A Dog of Flanders when I was little and admired the main character, Nero. I wanted to be blonde, I wanted to be like him. Nero was very good at drawing, so that’s when I started to like drawing. I tried drawing and got compliments, so I got into the swing of things. I couldn’t study or do sports, but I thought I could paint. I bought oil paints when I was in junior high school. My art teacher was a graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts, and that is how I learned about the university. When I heard that a (new) facility was going to be built in Toride, I thought I had to go there.

I don’t think I have ever wanted to go down any other path. My family has always run a construction company in Toride, so if I didn’t do painting, I would have to move on to that side. I wanted to live by painting. There was nothing else I could do. What was fun about painting? The colors, the touch, and so on. It was a place where you could do whatever you wanted. It was fun because there were no restrictions. I could see that I was getting better every day. So anyway, I wanted to paint a lot.

I went to art university and did installations, and after I left it, I started painting in oils again. When I was about to graduate, I met a lady from a company called Matsuda Oil Paints. She gave me a lot of paints, saying, “You are a graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts, so you should paint. She even found a place for me to exhibit my work, and I felt I had to paint. I was having so much fun that I decided to start painting from there.

Right after graduating from university , four of my classmates and I rented a studio in Musashi-Sakai. I thought that if I went to Tokyo, I would be able to find a partner. I met them right away and moved back to Toride after 2 years. It is more spacious here, and there is a home improvement center. I think I am satisfied with the production environment. It’s close to Tokyo.

I wanted something like a range for myself, so I decided not to make my debut until I was 30, so I accumulated works while doing group exhibitions. When I was just 30, I got a call from a gallery, so I held a solo exhibition. From there, connections were made, and people from my current gallery came to see my work. I didn’t feel like I had to worry too much.

I usually have a solo exhibition twice a year. The “beautiful boy” series are rough oil paintings that look like croquis. But when I paint them, different ideas come to me. About once a year, I do a barrage of small paintings, and then I develop what I find. I have several series in my mind, different types of paintings, and I get bored painting one continuously, so I line up canvases on the wall and paint as if I am going around in circles.

I am currently painting this Garden series for my solo exhibition in April. I have been spending a lot of time at home, and the first thing I came across was my garden. I have not painted leaves for a long time because it was a pain in the ass, but I tried my hand at something I am not good at. In my own way, I always have a challenging element in my work. I think about how I can broaden the scope of my painting if I can do this. It’s frustrating, but it’s fun. The Garden series is not so much coincidental, but more like it’s building up piece by piece. It’s like the more you paint, the more you get back…I’m sure it will look even better by April.

I have a vague goal in my mind, and I’m thinking about how to get closer to it. I would decide to paint this part of the picture today, and then I would go around and do about one move a week, thinking about it as I worked on the other pictures for a week, and then adding the next move. When I am done painting, I look at it over a drink and think about what I should do next. And while I am doing that, it is morning before I knew it. That’s what makes it fun.

When I wake up in the morning, I eat breakfast and watch a movie or a drama. Then I come to the studio, paint until about 8 pm, and have a drink.There were quite a few pictures that were inspired by movies. Watching movies is great, isn’t it? It’s a good way to connect to the pictures.

I’ve been vaguely interested in painting landscapes for the past few years. I guess I enjoy traveling for interviews. I wondered what Macaulay Culkin would look like if he were here on the beach. I ate a delicious octopus here, so I thought I’d draw an octopus, too. I went to see the scenery but couldn’t see anything because of the fog, so I decided to paint the fog. The form you think of in your mind is different from the form you actually see. So, you don’t know unless you actually go there. If I travel and paint like that, I don’t have trouble coming up with ideas, and it’s fun. So I have never thought about quitting painting.