Koshiro Akiyama
contact: koar194@gamil.com
Edvard Munch
Munch has greatly influenced me since 2019 when an exhibition of his work took place at Tokyo Metropolitan Art museum. His work attempts to deal with deep-seated mental issues and looks inward to explore themes of love, jealousy, loneliness, anxiety, sickness and death, which is based on death in his family–something I can relate to myself. His artwork really fascinates me in terms of its pessimistic tone, cheerful colour and simple and traditional process. His woodblock prints are especially impressive to me, and have helped me to develop colour choices and simplify my compositions and their details. Munch’s work manages to depict raw human emotion such as anxiety and melancholy. Such emotional upheaval can be perceived and generated by his spiritual perception. When it comes to technique, he makes use of simple processes because that enables him to focus on expressing his raw emotion, I think. One of his most prominent talents is his use of black, which allows him to express the profundity of human depression through strong and simple compositions. In contrast, other chromatic colours introduce a more delicate and complicated atmosphere. The chromatic areas appear distorted with psychological meaning.
Evening. Melancholy I, 1896, Edvard Munch, Woodcut, 41.2 x 45.7 cm.
The Voice, Summer Night, 1896, oil on canvas, 119.0 x 90.0 cm.
Pierre Bonnard
As well as Munch, Bonnard has had a huge impact on my style. His intimate and chromatic landscape paintings led me to the painting world. His scenes derive from sketches and memory. This means he also cherishes psychological factors that he captures rather than the object itself; he prefers recollection to recording. Apart from that, in his early career his work was affected by Japanese art such as the prints of Katsusika Hokusai, whose influence can be seen in the flatness and unique composition of these early works– an aesthetic that is very familiar for me. Though almost all of the artworks represent peaceful and calm space, existential anxiety or melancholy comes out every so often, especially in his self-portraits. That is the reason why his work is not just idyllic painting, it can also carry complex reality. Another significant aspect of his style is the depiction of domestic interiors and intimate and private spaces. These paintings seem to be motivated by daily life. The power of daily life is crucial to his work. When it comes to figure painting, his wife’s nude body is depicted many times and her character is hugely reflected in the paintings. His delicate attention is really suitable for the expression of these familiar motifs, which naturally leads to autobiographical paintings that are not related to heroism or socio-political ideas. Viewers can be immersed in his meditative world.
The workshop with Mimosa, 1935, Pierre Bonnard, oil on canvas, 125 x 125 cm.
The Palm, 1926, Pierre Bonnard, oil on canvas, 147 x 114.3 cm
Peter Doig
Doig’s work combines typically pastoral landscapes with the tension of his own experience, and in this way he is similar to Bonnard. All of the paintings have autobiographical features. His work is dream-like and nostalgic, depicting various locations testifying to his peripatetic life. It's safe to say that his work includes both characteristics of dystopia and utopia. His compositions make use of vibrant colours to generate surreal environments, but they also make use of theoretical skills. The images are often divided by linear elements and make use of the ‘Rule of Thirds’. This is perhaps because his work is based on photographs, so he has adapted photographic techniques in their construction. Furthermore, he picks up the images from films. Some paintings like Canoe-Lake (1997) use film effects like screen to build atmosphere within the painting. My artworks often take advantage of this same style of the appropriation from film.
His work does not depict perfectly tranquil landscapes, but has a decorative surface, creating a mysterious utopia. I relate to his partially rational and partially illogical approach which he employs to obtain a sense of ambiguous balance in his works.
Canoe-Lake, 1997, Peter Doig, oil on canvas, 200 × 300cm.
White Creep, 1995-6, Peter Doig, oil on canvas, 290× 199cm
Okumura Togyu
Okumura Togyu is one of the greatest Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) artists of the twentieth century. I learned Nihonga at Tokyo University of the Arts, and the technique has formed the basis of my artistic process. Painting in the Japanese style involves using animal skin glues which require a precise balance of water and pigments (ground at various particle sizes), to form different consistencies of paint. The subtlety of the materials involved in Nihonga has led me to carefully think about how to construct layers in a composition and to pay careful attention to colour mixing. For example, mixing pigments on the surface of a painting creates a muted effect when compared to the potency of the pigments closer to the paper’s surface. Thicker grain pigments are also more likely to crack, and using a high ratio of glue to water can stain the surface, and affect future processes. So, Nihonga painting requires a high level of knowledge of materials and correct technique. My background in this artform influences my style of production; I carefully make a plan and prepare a drawing in the same size as the intended painting to decide the composition and how to progress.
Regarding Togyu’s work, fluid brushstrokes and blurred boundaries of the subjects create deeply delicate space that is fascinating to look at. I think his aim for painting is to look for the position between the integrity of the nature and his own physical sensibility. His delicate and exquisite touch convey a peaceful moment in his subjects, and one can feel the warmth of the scenes he paints. I really appreciate that his work can relate such a physical sensation.
Naruto(鳴門), 1959, Okumura Togyu, olor on paper
Daigo(醍醐), 1972, Okumura Togyu, color on paper
Nara Yoshitomo
I have mentioned the influence of traditional Japanese-style painting on my work, but I must also acknowledge that contemporary Japanese art also has an effect on my thinking. For instance, I am drawn to the work of one of Japan’s most influential artists, Nara Yoshitomo, who depicts girls like anime characters with cuteness, but also slightly uncanny, frowning faces. The form of his figures is related to anime or manga which is a mainstay of Japanese pop-culture. The same form can partially apply to the figures in my paintings. My early experience of art is highly connected to this way of conveying the figure. Apart from the link in our figurative forms, Nara uses a wash of color technique in his figure’s eyes, which has a strong visual effect. Multiple layers of thin paint give their eyes quite an extraordinary appearance. The eyes of his figures really attract me and actually seem to distort my sight, as if physically pulling my sight down to their eyes. Few paintings can have such a physical effect, or optical illusion, in my experience. I also relate to his spirit that we can never forget childhood experiences and feelings. This is the same source of my motivation and inspiration, I think. In addition to their ambiguous faces, His figures express their pure and complicated emotion with evocative phrases or actions, which succeed in depicting the psychological state of a child, rebellion, innocence, boldness.
Miss Moonlight, 2020, Nara Yoshitomo, acrylic on canvas, 220 × 195 cm.
Missing in Action – Girl Meets Boy, 2005, Nara Yoshitomo, acrylic on canvas
Pierre Lesieur
His palette is light pastel tones, and his touch is delicate and sensible. Through these he creates intimate scenes of daily life. He was also influenced by the light and the colour of Pierre Bonnard’s paintings and Cubism. His work often places colourful and vibrant depictions of extraordinary objects like arabesque interiors, and antiques. He paints a unique atmosphere of interiors that reflects his passion for adventure and travel. He succeeds in keeping a balance between figuration and abstraction. The composition and the harmony of colours make them effective as abstract compositions, and their figurative elements make them dream-like. My early artworks were hugely influenced by Lesieur’s specific combination of colours and composition. The large colour field as a wall or a floor is one of his signature features, whereby ordinary interiors can become calm and mysterious spaces.
Porte sur jardin, 2007, Pierre lesiur, oil on cancas, 80 x 80 cm
Nu, 1984, Pierre Lesiur, oil on canvas, 215 x 215 cm
Adrian Berg
Adrian Berg was brought to my attention by Geraint during a 1-to-1 tutorial. From other UAL students I have gained an interest in the city parks of London and have picked them up as a motif. Berg is a highly-acclaimed British landscape painter. His subjects are often vast panoramas, depicting foliage along a lake or a pond in city parks or gardens. The paintings often deal with the phenomenon of reflection off of the water’s surface. His critical concern with empirical experience produce intuitive and complex pictures. Berg's pictures of trees and parks are never ordered according to perceived conventions of sight. They are decoratively fragmented images that evoke mythologies. He attempts to combine tradition and originality at once, which conveys an intelligence of feeling, as well as imaginative and intuitive aspects. We can acquire intuitive knowledge of the self and its relationship to the world through art, as well as a source of aesthetic pleasure through. Berg’s work understands this dichotomy. We tend to overlook one of these aspects when we look at art, but both sides are essential components of art. Modern society has moved in the direction of parochialism, it seems to me, but Berg’s painting touches the more robust, fundamental qualities of our artistic sense.
Second Lake, Sheffield Park Garden, Sussex Weald, 24th & 27th August, 2002, oil on canvas, 63.5 × 76.2 cm
First Lake, Sheffield Park Garden, Sussex Weald, 10th & 11th September,
2002, oil on canvas, 63.5 × 81 cm
Firenze Lai
In terms of her figuration my artwork is affected by it, particularly it is fictitious figures that come from her recollection. It was taken out markers of individual identity. My figuration in paintings also derives from my memory or random brushstrokes.
They can invite me the subtle or strong emotional movement that is really fundamental issues in our minds. Everyone might have the same psychological problem, because definitely we can not avoid from the depression or the sadness. I suppose she always tries to deal with such issues through the works. She cares about more universal system. They are built up everything related to her memory, I also emphasize that. The gender would not be important for her, I think. My paintings come out female and male figures randomly as the anonymity of the figures, because it represents of something regardless of the gender. The unconscious or conscious emotion is basically universal. That is very important. I just take easier way to express the issues. Her feelings completely entangle in a space. In these way, her works do not stand in the art history, it is just meaningless for them. That is really individual, but not individual. We can have empathy for her artworks.
Lunch Breaks 正午小憩, 2016, Oil on canvas, 110×85cm
Uwe Wittwer
His images gather pictorial fragments that come from cultural and historical references or the private memories found in the artist's family photo album. It is intertwined by collective and private factors. It gives rise to not only the beauty, but also the bizarre and unease sense. The horror is hidden in every image that come out from the unspecific scenery. His oil painting and watercolor take the viewer to nostalgic, dream-like imaginative worlds, but it also has unfamiliar narratives. The distinguish of real and fake challenges his artworks to find out the answer. His work mentions the problem of the truth content of visual sources is scattered in the age of the internet. There is another question of human’s viewing habit that deeply connects with the issues of images on the internet. To enhance the suggestion of that, the paintings construct the clear contrast based on the black colour, the deletion of details, blurred brushstrokes or casting the shadow, which erasures the pictures from immediate readability.
Prospect Garden, 2015, Watercolour
127 × 92 cm
Bacchanal after Poussin, 2015, Oil on canvas
100 × 130 cm