Concept
古代より衣服や貨幣などの様々な表現方法の媒体であった布と、近代的な材料および技法を組み合わせることで染色の新たな表現を模索したオブジェ。
「布を染めること」が染色であるが、布への着色のみでは染色の作品にはならない。縫う、貼るなど布が作品またプロダクトの場合においても存在を保つためには、他の工程が必要不可欠である。作品を完成させるというアーティストの責任において、最終形態を想像する試みは非常に重要であり、染色がより効果的な表現となるよう形状や技法、素材を模索しなければならない。
その中で、布は単体では自立することができない。その欠点ともいえる特徴を捉えた上で、自立しない程の薄さや透け感を他素材と融合させることで、自立を可能としながらも染色らしい作品の制作に至る。
素材には自身の制作テーマが大きく反映されている「現に着物」で使用した古着の着物の裏地を採用。破棄または売却された古着の着物を素材とすると同時に、それに宿る工芸としての記憶などの背景を紐解く。物質およびそれに籠められた情報を余すことなく使用して更なる価値を与えて昇華させることを目的としている。
染色加工後に川で洗う布が濡れた際に発色する最も美しい瞬間の濡れ色、陽に輝く水面や干し広げられた布からそこへと滴り落ちる雫が空中で輝く様など、本来は留めておけない一瞬の美しさや風景を封じ込める素材として、アクリルを選択して布を挟み込んだ。アクリルとの融合で発生する反射や歪みによって染色表現は従来の工芸的限界を越える。万華鏡のように角度によって表情は揺らめき、川から海へと水中を旅する異世界の夢を閉じ込めた宝石のように、染色の結晶に仕上げた。
This objet d’art aims for a new expression of color by combining modern materials and techniques with fabric, which has been used as a medium for various types of expression, including apparel and currency, since ancient times.
While dyeing is the process of coloring fabric, simply coloring fabric alone is not enough to produce a dyed work. Other processes such as sewing or pasting are essential for fabric to secure a status as a work or a product. Making an effort to imagine its final form is an extremely important part of the artist’s responsibility to complete a work of art, and the artist must seek out forms, techniques, and materials to make the expression of dyeing more effective.
In doing so, fabric cannot stand alone independently. A true work of dyeing is produced while enabling its independence through fusion with other materials of the thinness and translucency of fabric, which are enough to prevent it from standing alone, based on identifying its distinguishing features—which even could be called its flaws.
The material employed is the lining of vintage kimono that actually were worn at one time as kimono. While using as materials vintage kimono that were disposed of as waste or sold off, we also unravel their backgrounds, such as their inherent memories as works of craft. The aim is to sublimate and add further value to the material and the information woven into it, by putting it to full use without wasting any of it.
The fabric of acrylic was chosen as a material capable of sealing in momentary beauty and sights that usually cannot be preserved, such as the moist color at its most beautiful moment when the fabric gets wet during washing in a river after the dying process and the brilliance of the water’s surface and the drops of water dripping onto it from the fabric stretched out for drying in the sunlight. The expression of dyeing realized through the reflection and strain achieved through fusion with acrylic surpasses the traditional boundaries of craft. Like a kaleidoscope, the expression flickers with the angle, resulting in a work finished as a crystallization of dye, like a jewel found only in an otherworldly dream of traveling underwater from the river to the sea.
