About the artwork

physis – time of water, time of soil

If you look closely at seemingly flat and even house walls, you can find differences by comparing high and low points, or the middle part and the edges. If it is an outdoor wall that is 10 metres high and 70 metres wide, you can spot countless marks and traces; branched cracks in the concrete, paths of rainwater. Particles on the surface layer is fine on some areas, but rough on the other. If you closely observe this single material called “a wall” with the attention paid to the time that has passed and reconstruct it based on the analysed information, it would feel like a different thing from what you first perceived as a flat wall. And then, I jump to make my brushstroke. So, it shows that drawing does not always start from scratch, but is always connected to a world that is far more complex than you can imagine.

In the same way, my drawings, regardless of their sizes, are always formed from a collection of small things. And just as life is never a single entity, I enjoy seeing everything get intertwined, and push and shove against each other to create a flow that grows into a larger work. At such times, the act of drawing is more aptly described as ‘nurturing’ rather than ‘completing’ a work.

How can I nurture the painting in this place in a relaxed and spontaneous way? How can I understand the environment, get on well with the materials, accept changes and keep drawing as long as possible, until the end of time? With these thoughts in mind, I draw with the help of many people.

In the middle of the production, it comes to my mind sometimes that “drawing is so much fun”, as if remembering something that I had figured so long ago but forgotten after a while. At that moment, time gets compressed, and I feel as if the real start was right here and now, and that I could go much further. It makes me wonder and feel strange as there is still no end in sight. And when you look back at the world with such feelings, you see the world in a different way, just like when the way you see the wall changes completely. I learn about the world through drawing.

The title “physis” means, in ancient Greek, the eternally true thing that underlies changing phenomena, and thus nature as it is. Like the work “Choma” which I created in 2015 and is exhibited nearby, I hope that visitors will enjoy not only the full picture but also the many details, from a dragon of earth and a dragon of water, and countless small creatures overlapping two separate streams to the small circles and single dots, along with the seasons as they go round and round.