Jon Effemey : Freelance Writer

Artist Statement

Atsuko Yamagata Mar 9th, 2013

There are two approaches I use when I create my pieces.

One is to trim my mental images off.

I refreshed my recognition of myself that I am just the one of the very common Japanese woman since I came to live in the Philippines, and I have been concentrating my efforts on deepening consideration of myself. That is because I have started to believe that expressing my own mental image is as same as expressing a part of a considerable about of Japanese women today.

In particular, the feelings such as moral cowardice, indifference toward the world affairs, politics and people other than oneself, suppressed sexuality, complex, distorted pride and so on, which I have within myself.

I have been trying to look closely to those feelings and then to express those greediness and disconsolate mood with colors.

I also often portray birds because I find myself within them.

The birds are sometimes the eyes of men looking at women, and sometimes they are women opening their eyes wide in the darkness. They may be just laughing, but may be staring desperately at their own enemy, keeping their eyes front, even though they are about to be crushed under the pressure. And off course, they sometimes spread their beautiful wings proudly…

The other approach is to conduct a live-painting with music.

I consider that the great art work gives an impact to people and exert and influence upon their life even if it was created in hundreds of years ago. However, such experience is rare, and most people cannot encounter it many times.

But if the people witness every moment of being a part of art, and experience it by themselves, it could be their unforgettable experience.

Therefore, I conduct the live-painting, which express visually the space and time that people at place are sharing, hoping that my live-painting works to be more “experience-based arts.”

When people are listening to a live music, they make out that moment out of their hearing and the olfactory sense, and alter it unconsciously to the same kind of visual images.

I am hoping that the viewer of the live-painting would feel the differentiation between their visual images and that of the images of live-painters’  by seeing the process of live-painter’s visual transformation, and would experience the surprise and discovery.

Furthermore, the live-painter  gets a new insight by capturing the live music and its atmosphere by sight. Such stroke and colors brought about by the factors outside of themselves always renew their way of expression.