When I create my works, I don't look for motifs from the outside world. I just "EXCAVATE" deep within myself to find motifs. First, a faint feeling or vague impulse arises from somewhere deep inside me, but I don't have a clear picture in my mind. I can't ignore the pulse because it is somehow itchy around my chest, which means I can'tresist it.
I usually start drawing lines on canvas without thinking what to draw,
just obeying my feeling or my subconscious to satisfy my pulse. Even I don't
know what I am going to draw, but I try to find lines which feel right
and comfortable. It is as if I were feeling for the ditches that are buried in the ground, or I were asking somebody else inside me "Is this what
you want? Do you want me to draw this line...?" As a result, sometimes
the lines look like a bird, sometimes fish, but they are not what are created
deliberately. Those images form themselves, or are just found by chance.This is
the reason why I call my works "excavated images."
The title of this home page 'excavated images',
which I also used as the title of my first personal exhibition, comes from
some memories in my childhood, too. When I was about ten years old, I happenedto find a fragment of an earthen vessel (Jomon ware) in my uncle's tangerine
field. The fragment had several curved lines which looked like a part of
a picture of an animal or something. I liked the simple lines, the colors
and the texture of the old vessel. Later, it turned out to be more than
3000 years old, and the fact gave me great excitement. Those fragments
gave me a mysterious, sometimes even religious feeling as if the time of3000 years itself were in my hand. They attracted me because they were
transitory, but at the same time eternal.
Many people have asked me what I wanted to express through my works,
but I still can't find a good answer to those question. I can say many
things, but each of those doesn't seem accurate. It is just a feeling mysterious, religious, nostalgic... But if I could put all these feelings in words, I don't think I have to paint pictures. I continue to paint, but I don't know what will come up next.
by Hajime Yamamura
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