#01 Keeenue / Artist,Painter
Collaboration and close involvement with artists and creators is a special and important time for us to truly engage in creativity. By empathizing with their positive pride and mentality, listening to their voices, and continuing to deliver them, WIND AND SEA is constantly evolving.
#01 is artist and painter Keeenue.
If people don't see the work.
An artist is meaningless.
I attract with color.
I used both my home and studio, but as the volume of my work increased, it became too cramped, and about last summer I moved my production base to a building about 15 minutes by car from my home in Chigasaki.
I worked part-time for Mr. Keiichi Tanaami for about three years, since it was about a year after I graduated from school. I was in the graphic design department at university, and many people around me were going on to work for advertising agencies or design companies, but I had a dim idea that I wanted to go on to create my own artwork. I could not imagine myself as an artist, but as I helped Mr. Tanaami and others in various ways, I got a sense of what it was like to be an artist, and that is when I began to want to work hard on my own.
Even if you are an artist, it is meaningless unless people see your work first. This is what I have always thought. In a world full of so much information, when I think about what attracts people's eyes quickly, for me it is "color" and "shape. In everyday life, not only in art, but also in package design, advertisements, and anything else, my favorite color combinations tend to catch my eye naturally.
I think I output what feels good to me, so I don't think any direct emotion is expressed in my work, either in color or form. If emotion does enter into the work, it would be in the concept. I often incorporate what is bothering me at the time into the theme. Also, when I am pissed off, it may motivate me to say, "I'm going to make a good work, so just watch me.
I started to think
the world was bigger.
I became more positive.
When collaborating, I often receive conditions and themes ahead of time, so I do my own research based on those conditions and themes. However, when I am presenting my own work at a solo exhibition, I often start with a vague idea and then slowly solidify it. There is a different pleasure in being able to express what I want to express in a pure way, and also in proceeding with a subject that I don't have as a hint. Even if the entrance is different, as long as I think it's cool, that's all that matters to me. Sometimes I think about how to paint after I start coloring, and sometimes I decide on the spot, or sometimes I decide on a rough sketch digitally and trace it out. It really depends on my mood. However, starting without being able to see the final shape is fun and unpredictable, but it is easier to say that it is easier to decide ahead of time. It is extremely inefficient to paint once and then paint over it again with different colors to get a pleasing color and shape. When you get lost, worried, or lazy, it is important to set a deadline. When I see a deadline and feel like I'm in trouble, or when I see other people's good work or exhibits, it motivates me.
I was living with a goal like "I want to sell my paintings and make a living," but when I became Corona? I was living my life with the goal of selling my paintings and making a living, but when I became a Corona artist? I felt like, "What is this? I was not enjoying painting, and there was a period of time when I felt like I was in a fog. Maybe because I had never exhibited overseas, I felt like I was in a small art community in Japan. After I started thinking that the world is much bigger than I thought, I gradually returned to a more positive attitude of going beyond what I had done before. And I also thought that maybe what I can do is to draw pictures.
I have always been interested in murals that are just big and overwhelmingly powerful. I had often said that I wanted to paint murals in the past, and gradually, opportunities began to present themselves. When I exhibit my work in a gallery, it is for the people who come to see it, but I like the fact that anyone can see the mural. And you want to completely change the atmosphere of the place.
This collaboration allowed me to try out expressions I had never tried before, and I had a lot of fun drawing them. It all started when I learned that octopuses, like humans, may dream. The image of the octopus camouflaged on the rock, coming out and hiding, and the ambiguity between dream and reality, are incorporated in the depth of the painting. And it represents the ocean and water in WIND AND SEA.
