Yukimasa Ida
The Irreplaceable Moment of Art
Today, artists are at liberty to combine genres, materials and forms in order to create a spiritual experience thought their artworks. According to professor Philip Sheldrake, “spirituality refers to the deepest values and meanings by which people seek to live.” Japanese artist Yukimasa Ida creates his own uniquely immersive spirituality in the form of mesmeric artworks, narrating about the importance of treasuring every encounter that might never happen again (ICHIGO-ICHI-E). His hypnotic pieces, where you suddenly see a blurring image of one of Renoir’s famous Parisian social scenes, delicately infused with Egon Shiele’s rough texture and dramatically stirred into Basquiat’s gestural style, forge a feeling of an ontological relationship existing between the beholder and the environment. Ostensibly, looking at the artist’s paintings is a ceremony built on the utmost sincerity of the transient moment. Whilst everything is constantly changing, artworks created by Yukimasa Ida gives the transience a clear image by locking the latter inside the spiritual context of a viewer. Interacting with a viewer, who becomes a participant, the artworks seem to transform a viewer’s perception of mundane reality by placing the latter in an immediate and individualised relationship with his or her own intellectual demands. The artworks become a certain mediator between a beholder, already living the future with plans and thoughts, and his or her own spiritual identity enjoying the transience of the present.
Your art concept of ICHI-GO-ICHI-E reminds me of Heraclitus’ philosophy, where life appears to be a constantly changing river, which no one can thus step into twice. Could you please tell us about the origin of the Japanese concept of ICHI-GO-ICHI-E?
As stated in the famous saying by Heraclitus, “No man ever steps in the same river twice”. Similar to time, the water is also constantly flowing. ICHI-GO-ICHIE is a Japanese traditional concept which is very similar to that concept of Heraclitus. The reason of choosing ICHI-GO-ICHIE as my main theme and focusing on it, is all the experiences of meeting and parting from my childhood to the present times. The loss of close friends and relatives made me think deeply about life and death and the indescribable thoughts about the existence of others. Human being itself is constantly changing. The topic may differ, the concept, the values, even the appearance changes in each person. Until yesterday one person has warmth and stays alive, but who knows about today, everything could be change and he may turn cold and dead. Spring in Japan would decorate the trees with blooming flowers, while summer would add lively growing fresh green leaves. Those leaves would became golden in autumn in order to be vanished together with all other hues by winter. This universal cycle is the substantial core of my concept ICHI-GO-ICHIE, and I believe that this concept represents a kind of metaphysical universal truth is the universal truth. Each moment that we experience is an irreplaceable one, something that cannot be experienced again, and these consecutive moments constitute the world. People restrain their emotions, such as joy, sorrow, sadness, anger, lies, etc. Being part of this human community, I experience such things daily. The abstract thoughts that I constantly had on my mind, while meeting people, attending parties, satisfying my wishes and desires, could bring me to a conclusion that I was living a life of an artist. When, one day, those unutterable feelings could be shaped into words, my artistic theme obviously became ICHI-GO-ICHIE. Thus, it is neither something in particular, nor a single incident that made my theme ICHI-GO-ICHIE com to life. But it reminds more of decision-making process filled with choice alternatives in each corner with me in the middle of it, trying to reach the point, while walking on a winding path.
Your artworks are very emotional and multifaceted in a certain way. I could interpret a presence of Egon Shiele with Jean-michel Basquiat in one of your paintings, and Jeff Koons with Andy Warhol in another one. How do you create that allusion?
Indeed, I receive some feedback saying that my artworks are emotional. However, my personal impression concerning my artworks is completely opposite. The objects drawn in the paintings, my own eyes, and the motif as such — all these three elements are all essential for my creative work and constitute the top priority for me as an artist. I have never thrown my emotions towards the canvas, as a matter of fact, I try to keep my emotions away from it. I always keep in my mind that emotions should not be the trigger for me to take the brush and start painting. I take the brush because the event of painting itself is necessary for the artwork. If I were to paint with all my emotions, it would be too immature. Therefore, I clearly know that while the emotions are exposing in the artwork, it becomes something unappealing and uncomfortable for me to show for the audience. Perhaps, I could say that I have a desire to do so using my emotions while painting. But after I've captured and shaped them, I project the emotions on the canvas. However, I would still want to keep a certain control over them. If the emotions are controlled, some hidden emotions come visible on the surface of the artworks. It is something unexpected but it makes me really happy. The best considerable environment for creating my art is when all these puzzle pieces