"絵が見る世界"

（AI KOWADA GALLERY / 東京）

　このたびAI KOWADA GALLERYでは鈴木星亜の個展「絵が見る世界」を開催いたします。 三菱アート・ゲート・プログラムやトーキョーワンダーウォールなど、学生時代より数多くの展覧会で入選し注目を集めてきた鈴木は、多摩美術大学院在学中の2012年にVOCA賞を受賞。上野の森美術館で展示されたオリジナリティ溢れる大型作品は各方面に大きなインパクトを与え、主催者第一生命によるコレクションとなりました。鈴木は新鋭作家として最も期待されているペインターのひとりです。
数年来描き続けているテーマ、「絵が見る世界」は鈴木の中心的なテーマのひとつであり、この一見すると奇妙なタイトルは先のVOCA展でも大きな波紋を呼びました。 鈴木自身はこのタイトルを次のように解釈しています。マン・レイがカメラを機械の眼と呼んだようにもし絵画に眼があるのならば、絵画の見ている世界とは作家を通してキャンバスという網膜に映し出された世界なのではないか。なぜなら、この絵画の眼に映る世界は作家の眼に映る世界とも、作家の中にある記憶世界とも異なり、描く段階でまたひとつ何か別の変換がなされているから、と。
作家の意図に関わらず介入してくる要素を鈴木は「絵に描かされている部分」と呼びます。この不可思議な何かへの純粋な好奇心と真摯な問いこそが鈴木作品の真髄とも言えるでしょう。
油絵というコンサバティブなメディアを用いる鈴木は、一方で独創的なメソッドで作品を制作します。ひとつはスケッチをメモで、すなわち言葉でとること。ドローイングや写真など様々な形態でのスケッチを試した末、メモだと単語や文章ごとにイメージが浮かぶため風景の要素を取り出すことができ、遠近法や絵画的パースペクティヴから自由な空間の捉え方が可能となることを発見したためです。今回の個展ではあえてメモを英語で取り、そこに何か違いが生じるのか新たな「実験」を加えた作品も登場しています。もうひとつは下絵を描かず、直接油絵の具でメモに沿って順番に描いていくこと。自分の求めるものは整った構図や美しい形ではないから、とメモに書き記した要素を潔く上から順番にキャンパス上に描いて行きます。
鈴木は描くこととはすなわち「問う」ことだと言います。何かを見て絵を描くとき、そこで何が起きているのだろうか。自分が目にした３次元の世界を２次元のキャンパスに描き起こす時、何がどのように変換されているのだろうか。そもそも、自分はどのようにものを見ているのだろうか。存在や認識に至る鈴木の問いは、若者特有の第三者を前提とした自己表現からは一線を画し、徹底して自らの内を掘り下げて行きます。この機会にぜひご高覧下さい。
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世界と絵画の間には、何が起きているのだろうか。
絵画は私をカメラのレンズのように用いて世界を自分の網膜に焼き付ける。その時、レンズである私は何らかのかたちで光を捉え、解釈し、それを絵画に焼き付けている。 レンズの様々な種類、或いは傷や劣化などによって光の捉え方が異なるように、私の光の捉え方にもあらゆる可能性がある。この限りない自由とも、底のない恐怖ともいえる可能性に目を背けずに向き合うことが、この世界について考える大きな手がかりになるのではないだろうか。
しかし如何に私が必死に光を捉えて焼き付けようとしても、それを受け取るのは私ではなく絵画なのだ。絵画に現れるものは、私の捉えた光そのものではない。それでもそこにわずかでも手がかりがあるかもしれない。そう願いながら私は、徒労でもあるかもしれない実験を繰り返すのだ。

2013年　鈴木星亜

　Ai Kowada Gallery is going to present a solo exhibition, "The World a Painting Sees" by Seia Suzuki. Suzuki won the VOCA prize 2012 while still an M.A. student at Tama Art University. He attracted keen attention with several other prizes, such as the Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program and Tokyo Wonder Wall. His huge painting left such a deep impact that it immediately became a part of the VOCA exhibitor's private collection. Suzuki is one of the most anticipated young painters. Suzuki showed an interesting contrast between a conservative medium, oil painting, and a creative method especially in the process from taking sketches to constructing canvases. One point of his originality appeared in his sketches. He sketched in words, which means taking notes instead of making rough drawings.
Trying different techniques and materials such as charcoal drawings and photographs to make a sketch, he found himself free from visual memories by sketching in words. That's because he could take each element out of a scene with memos, as images appeared in his mind word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence. For some pieces at this exhibition, he challenged himself to take notes in English in order to see whether a language as a culture left him any difference.
For another unique point of his method, he painted without drafts or constructing a canvas by reading through his notes. Instead, he worked on each element in the scene one by one according to the order of notes, reinforcing the idea that a structured traditional approach is not always necessary.
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Suzuki believes painting is "asking himself a question". He is intrigued by what is going on in his head, when he paints the world he sees in three dimensions on two-dimensional canvas. He is also fascinated by what can be altered in the process of painting and moreover, the way we perceive objects. Distant from the mere self-expression typical to young artists, his questions through painting get to almost as far as questions on existence or perception.
Suzuki showed an interesting contrast between a conservative media, oil painting, and a creative method especially in the process from taking sketches to constructing canvases. For one of his originality is in his sketches. He sketched in words, that means taking notes instead of making rough drawings. Trying different techniques and materials such as charcoal drawings and photographs to make a sketch, he found out being able to be free from perspective with sketching in words. That's because he could take each element out of a scene with memos, as images appeared in his mind word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence. For some pieces at this exhibition, he challenged to taking memos in English in order to see whether a language as a culture left him any difference. For another, he painted without drafts or constructing a canvas by reading through his memos. Instead, he worked on each element in the scene one by one with the order of a memo, making himself clear that an accurate structure or a beautiful shape was out of his interest.

Suzuki believed painting "asking a question" by himself. He was intrigued by what is going on, when he painted the world he saw in three dimensions on two-dimensional canvas. What could be altered and how? How do I perceive objects in the first place? Distant from mere self-expression typical to young artists, his questions through painting got to almost as far as epistemology or ontology.
Have a look at Suzuki's newest works!
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What's going on between the world and a painting? A painting prints the world in its retina with me, who function as a camera lens. Then I capture light in some way, interpret and print a painting.
The way I capture light has various possibilities, as many kinds of shapes, scratches and deterioration give lens various ways of capturing light. We may get great clues by facing possibilities that could be regarded as both unbounded freedom and bottomless fear.
However, no matter how desperately I try to capture light and print, it is a painting that receives it. What appears in the painting isn't simply equal to the light I captured. Even so there may have a slight clue, I believe. Therefore I shall repeat this experiment, which could end in vain.

2013 Seia Suzuki