Hajime Yamamura:

excavated images

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.

       

Q. What is it like being an artist in Japan? A. Being an artist in Japan is... I must say it is not easy. Actually, I'm not living on my art works. I have a job as a school teacher, and painting is (currently) my hobby. I guess it is the same in your home country. Not all people can be professional artists. Many (financially) successful artists are members of some art-group. The most largest group with the longest tradition and is supposed to be an authority is "Nitten". But the works we can find in this group's exhibition are generally very conservative. There are so many other art groups with quite different mottoes. "Taiyo-kai", the group I belong, is one of those groups. Q. Here in the US all we really hear about Japan is economic news, do people in Japan honor art as they do other aspects of life there? A. Hum... I think it is natural for you to think so. But I believe Japanese people are quite familiar with arts in our daily life. We have our own delicate sense to the surroundings, such as season, scenary, weather and so on. Those sense of ours have created the unique Japanese culture, I think.

by Hajime Yamamura
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