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Koshiro Kihara



Currently, you create the motif yourself, photograph it, and then translate that photograph into an oil painting. What expressions or suggestions arise from taking these steps during the process?
Photographic works are expressed as if they are an absolute reflection of truth. On the other hand, when you try to capture something with the naked eye without using a camera, it then becomes quite subjective. By following the process of painting what has been photographed, the output becomes detailed, but since it is rendered as a painting through the artist’s perspective, it includes an element of fiction. Using a camera results in an image that appears truthful, but because it is a painting, there is also a sense of emptiness. The question arises whether what is depicted on the canvas actually exists or not, making the layers of reality and fiction even more complex, I think.

You want to make the clarity a bit more vague?
Vaguer, more complex… It’s the same for the abstract and the concrete, and I want to further blend together the imaginary and reality.
I see. I would like to ask you about your process of creation. When you start working on a piece, where do you begin from?
I start by creating the motif, and the first process I undertake is photographing that.
It begins with you going hands on into the project. Do you go through your thoughts before creating?
Sometimes the idea comes from thinking, and other times it comes from working with my hands, so it’s both.
How does the form of these motifs come into existence? Do you approach the image that you have in your mind, or do you rely more on spontaneity?
It depends on the motif. Each material has its own freedom and constraints, the balances and elements they provide are different. For clay, I feel it is more appropriate to approach it with a certain level of planning rather than emphasizing spontaneity by just moving my hands. Yet for cellophane which I have been using recently, I cut it with a cutter and drop paint on it, and this composition process utilizes spontaneity and unpredictability.
Each of your works has its own title, do you discover them during the process of creation?
Since I don’t consider that when I am creating, the titles are added afterward.