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| MasakoYASUKI "Obliterated ground" 2001 |
A Perspective on Masako Yasuki
by Nagahiro Kinoshita (historian of thought)
Masako Yasuki has been painting ‘landscapes’ throughout her career. Her ‘landscape’, however, is not the same as the ‘landscape’ we usually see, and question after question flows through my mind on looking at her paintings . . .
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Masako YASUKI "Pine Woods"
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How do we recognize the ‘landscape’ floating around us as nothing other than ‘landscape’?
We never doubt that what we see as ‘landscape’ is ‘landscape’, but how can this be so? How does the ‘landscape’ convince us it is such?
What does the ‘eye’ actually ‘see’?
How does the ‘eye’ tell the ‘hand’ of a painter to paint a ‘painting’?
Does the ‘hand’ actually ‘see’? . . .
It is this never-ending queue of questions that Yasuki’s paintings address – indeed, we can call her painting the ‘landscape of questioning’.
The word ‘questioning’, of course, may be a noun/ gerund meaning ‘to question’, or a present participle, meaning ‘to be posing a question at this very moment’. Yasuki’s questioning encompasses both these meanings.
Observations ~
by Masako Yasuki &
Hiroyuki Tsubomi (brain scientist)
Hiroyuki Tsubomi (brain scientist)
Tsubomi
As a scientist, I study the mechanisms of human vision. In the process of scientific research, we see it as a precondition that everyone goes through the same visual experience as others when the same light comes into the eye.
Scientific studies on human vision are just like writing a usage manual for human beings in general. It is an attempt to make up an inventory of principles that are true to every human being, lining up one-on-one correspondences such as 'When A takes place, B will be experienced'.
However, through discussions with Ms. Yasuki, I have come to wonder how often such principles with one-to-one correspondence (such as A-to-B) can be applied to actual experiences, for I have the feeling that when you create or see a painting or a sculpture, you may experience C instead of B, or could just say 'A!' aloud. In short, the creator's personal experiences as well as added flavors peculiar to the creator result in an artwork that we see.
The word 'flavor' may not really be suitable here. Some time ago a friend of mine whose hobby is photography showed me a picture that he took. I said to him, 'This picture is nicely taken,' my intention being to praise him for his technique. He replied to me that he saw things just the way they were reproduced in the picture, which was a surprise to me.
I always believed that a photograph or an artwork was basically a reproduction of the things that everbody can see in the same way – only with some flavors added by the artist, using a camera or brush, or carving knife. What my friend told me, however, led me to suspect that his photograph might infact represent exactly what he saw as he saw it.
The purpose of scientific research is to discover regular principles that can be equally applied – presently, at least. When A takes place, it will look like B. When the wavelength of the light is detected and analyzed, you will automatically know what color you will see. Such are scientific principles. But I am beginning to wonder if human beings might possibly go through a visual experience that cannot be explained by the application of these principles.
Yasuki
I have see various artworks from different times and places. Be it a painting or a sculpture, or a work of video art, I face each artwork with these thoughts in mind: 'Ah, the people who lived in that region in that time "saw" things like this', or 'There must have been special circumstances in that region which inevitably led people to accept the way they are supposed to "see" things.' Seeing artworks in such a way for many years, I have come to think that the act of 'seeing' involves some kind of act of will.
When it comes to creating my own artworks, I fee I regard my own body as a sample of a human being that this particular place in this particular time has produced (even though with a slight bit of inherent physical character or personality, including the brain). I place this body in the 'landscape' and examine how it responds, what it remembers, and what it sees. This is as close as I can come to accurately describing my creative acts in words.
In the process of making a panting, I am often faced with arbitrary creations of my own brain at the subconscious level, which the brain makes believe that it actually sees. For me it is important to continue noticing and relativizing them.
As such, I was quite intrigued by Dr. Tsubomi's discovery, supported by the scientific data, showing that the human brain can consciously see no more than three objects, on average, at one time.
'No more than three' is an awfully small number. A possible implication is that, outside this limited area of consciousness, the things you believe you are seeing are nothing other than arbitrary creations of your own brain at the subconscious level. I suspect that it might be in this creative step that the 'flavor' Dr. Tsubomi mentioned is found, adding to the things we see and remember. If so, it follows that subconsciously created (or 'flavored'?) vision must be rooted in the 'special circumstances of particular place and particular time' I mentioned previously. These special circumstances could include the culture, education, social environment and religious views to which the body is connected, and perhaps the language that is used to think and communicate. You could also include in a broad sense the 'landscape' inside which the body has been produced and nurtured, and the 'landascape' (again in a broad sense) which surrounds the body at a particular moment.
Masako Yasuki on 'inverse persepctive landscape'
When I first visited the place in Auvers-sur-Oise where van Gogh painted his famous ‘Wheat Field with Crows’, I almost collapsed unconscious. It was so bright and vast – too bright and vast, with the ears of wheat near and far so vivid. I felt my sense of place and direction evaporate away – quite smoothly, though, without any sense of confusion. My ability to grasp my surroundings stalled entirely, leaving me unable to rely anymore on what I always think of as ‘my own’ body – eyes and brain included – when going about my everyday life. It was as if all the names of all the things were gone. Perhaps I’d simply been overwhelmed by the sheer brightness of the light.
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Masako YASUKI "Heading West Latitude: 39.67 Longitude: 140.82"
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This experience is, I think, a ‘common experience’ of all living organisms, from the first ever to capture light with an eye through to present-day humans. That time in van Gogh’s wheat field, I felt my ‘self’ slipping away and disappearing. Since then, on other occasions in the mountains of the Tohoku region of Japan and the forest of Jukai near Mount Fuji, I have had the same sensation. I have subsequently visited these places again and again, and tried to create paintings out of the experience.
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Masako YASUKI "exposed scapes - childhood tree -"
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Grasping hold of something by naming it is a very human thing to do. People have always aspired to attain wisdom by doing so, and our cultural activities play a major role in the process. However, by fixing the relationship between a thing and its name, we also suppress our imaginations with regard to the original shape of the thing before it was named.
I imagine the sheer scale and shapelessness of things before they were named would have been extremely unsettling. If, for example, we could not call the sky ‘the sky’ or the sea ‘the sea’, these things would regain their atavistic fearfulness for us. This said, in addition to fixing the shape of the world around us, I believe culture ought to play an important role in shifting, twisting, suspending and dissolving it in order that we may reevaluate the nature of reality and face our fears about it.
1994
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MFA in Art, Kyoto Seika University
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2001
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Artist-in-Residence at Edinburgh College of Art through the Artist Exchange "ART-EX" by Osaka Prefectural Government
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2004
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Guest Artist at Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA
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Selected Solo Exhibitions | |
1993
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galerie 16, Kyoto
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1995
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"retina" galerie 16, Kyoto
"there" galerie 16, Kyoto |
1997
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"be" galerie 16, Kyoto
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1998
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"To See in a World of Brightness" galerie 16, Kyoto
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1999
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"Not Message but Presence", galerie 16, Kyoto
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2000
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"real/time" Galerie Ando, Tokyo
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2001
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"the presence between things" Gallery Te, Tokyo
Sculpture Court Gallery at Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, UK |
2002
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"Edinburgh Project" Osaka Contemporary Art Center
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2003
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Base Gallery, Tokyo
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2005
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"a ground" Galerie 16, Kyoto
Gallery Te, Tokyo |
2006
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Cubic Gallery, Osaka
Gallery Te, Tokyo |
2009
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“evaporating time, exposed scapes” galerie 16, Kyoto
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Selected Group Exhibitions | |
1991
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"Kyoto Independent Exhibition" Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto
"tabla rasa" Kyoto Shijo Gallery, Kyoto |
1994
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"International Liaison Exhibition" International Community Center, Kyoto
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1995
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"field book - drawings" Gallery Jiyu-kuukan, Osaka
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1996
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"Painting - being makes ripples" galerie 16, Kyoto
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1997
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"The Future of Painting '97" Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Osaka
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1998
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"'98 Selected Exhibition" Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto
"The Future of Paintings '98" Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Osaka "Trembling State" Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Osaka / Roxyside Museum, Hiroshima / Kobe Art Village Center, Kobe |
1999
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"The Vision of Contemporary Art Japan" The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo
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2000
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"2000 Selected Exhibition" Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto
"INCUBATION 00" Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto |
2001
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"Selected Exhibition", The Museum of Kyoto, Kyoto
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2002
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"The Vision of Contemporary Art Japan" The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo
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2004
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“FLAT-PLAT - Far West near East” Kanagawa Kenmin Hall Gallery, Yokohama / CASO Contemporary Art Space Osaka, Osaka
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2005
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“City-net Asia 2005” Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul
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2008
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“from sublime to uncanny” CASO Contemporary Art Space Osaka, Osaka
“Out of Sight, Still in Mind” Gallery Hangil, Paju |
2010
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“Gold Experience: Contemporary Painting with Gold Leaf from Korea and Japan" Hyun Gallery, Seoul
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