Meet Yuta Niwa, Japanese Painter Mixing Traditional and Contemporary Art – RisePEI

Painter Yuta Niwa, like many younger Japanese artists, incorporates conventional portray methods and supplies into his work, akin to Japanese conventional paper, ink, pigments, and Nikawa glue.

Niwa offers with disasters akin to earthquakes and infectious ailments utilizing large salamanders and catfishes as motifs.

In his graduate thesis challenge, he depicted the devastation of 4 latest earthquakes in Japan utilizing the large catfish, which has been considered the supply of earthquakes since historic instances, on the middle of his work. The work was impressed by the recognition of catfish work within the nineteenth century, when main earthquakes occurred in Japan.

By exploring the resilience of human beings to beat grief by changing disasters with humor, Niwa uncovers the roots of the inventive act that may be present in all ages.

ARTnews JAPAN spoke with Niwa, who’s briefly again in Japan because of the pandemic after finding out in Beijing since 2020.

On the day of the interview, Niwa appeared at Roppongi Station in Tokyo carrying a pair of glasses with a singular design body, which he says he selected as a result of “they give the impression of being cool, like cyberpunk.” He smiled innocently and mentioned that he purchased them as a reward for successful an artwork competitors final yr.

This yr, he’s about to start out work on 24 sliding door work for Tofukuji Temple, a thirteenth century temple of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism in Kyoto.

Niwa plans to remain on the temple and work on the work whereas dwelling and sleeping with the monks. The vary of his actions is extraordinarily extensive.

ARTnews JAPAN: Big salamanders and catfish seem in your work. How did you develop into fascinated about these motifs?

Yuta Niwa: I used to be shocked after I encountered a stay large salamander at an aquarium in Kyoto. Being from Tokyo, I had by no means seen such a creature earlier than. In as we speak’s information-oriented society, it’s exhausting to get the impression of seeing one thing for the primary time.

There’s something uniquely fascinating in regards to the drawings of tigers and leopards that have been made by medieval and early fashionable painters, who had by no means seen these creatures, however drew them on the subject of imports from mainland China and different sources. For me, I believed that the large salamander may very well be such a motif. Subsequently, after I paint, I worth the impression I had after I first encountered them greater than making an attempt to be biologically correct.

In truth, that’s how I began out, with a figurative curiosity, however as I researched the folklore in regards to the large salamander, I got here to know that its existence was handed down as a metaphor for catastrophe. It’s well-known that catfish have been believed to trigger earthquakes, however there are lots of different examples all through Japan of tales linking large aquatic creatures to disasters.

ANJ: You could possibly say that the fruits of your scholar days, which have been marked by your curiosity in these disasters and folklore, is your 2019 graduate college challenge, “The Big Catfish Shaking Up the Archipelago Fusuma-e (sliding door portray).”

Previously, many Japanese masters created sliding door work for politically or religiously necessary architectural buildings. You might have made 12 sliding doorways impartial of structure and introduced them as set up works, depicting earthquake disasters which have occurred in recent times in varied components of the Japanese archipelago. And on the middle of them lies a large catfish.

Why did you resolve to particularly depict latest disasters?

YN: I used to be hesitant to make use of latest disasters as the subject material for my work, because the survivors are nonetheless coping with many issues and emotional trauma. Nevertheless, after I noticed woodblock prints depicting a large catfish (Namazu-e) that have been often produced in nineteenth century Japan, I made a decision to make use of the earthquake catastrophe, which I’ve actual recollections and experiences of, as the subject material of my work. Previously, folks overcame damaging matters akin to earthquakes with the humor of Namazu-e. As a substitute of merely being pessimistic, they held on to hope for indicators of social change and tried to protect the reminiscence of the catastrophe in place names and folklore and move it on to future generations.

Whether or not it’s an earthquake or a plague, I’m positive that giving a tangible type to one thing unknowable will persuade folks and make them really feel higher. Whether or not folks actually believed it or not, a visual menace was most likely higher than an invisible one.

I consider that is how varied imaginary specters and monstrous beasts have been created in Japan and have develop into work and tales. When cholera broke out, a chimera-like creature combining a tiger, a wolf, and a raccoon canine was blamed as the reason for the epidemic. It’s fascinating that, even as we speak, after we understand how earthquakes happen, illustrations of catfish are nonetheless used as icons of disasters on indicators and postings in Japan.

ANJ: Now, I wish to get extra into you as a painter. What sort of little one have been you?　How did you develop into a painter?

YN: What influences my present work could also be “Godzilla,” which I’ve liked since I used to be a baby. When my mom noticed certainly one of my drawings, she mentioned, “It seems to be like Godzilla.” It’s true that the large black creature born from hydrogen bomb exams and destroying cities has one thing in frequent with the large salamander, which is a metaphor for catastrophe.

I like not solely Godzilla, but in addition particular results themselves. I believe I’m within the sort of actuality that’s created by the pseudo-reproduction, which is extra actual than the true factor. I do know there’s quite a lot of CG work these days, however elaborate fashions of cityscapes that have been constructed on the idea that they might be destroyed from the beginning look extra reasonable than they really are within the movie’s story.

I didn’t need to be a painter from the start. As a baby, I needed to be a carpenter. Then, below the affect of my highschool artwork instructor, I discovered that there was an possibility to review structure at an artwork faculty. From there, I started researching artwork college entrance exams, visited artwork museums, and enrolled in Kyoto College of the Arts.

It was not till I returned from a six-month research overseas program in Switzerland on the finish of my sophomore yr that I clearly determined to main in conventional Japanese pictorial expression at college. Throughout my research overseas, I spotted as soon as once more that I knew completely nothing about Japanese artwork. After returning to Japan, I started finding out conventional Japanese portray supplies and methods below the steerage of Professor Yoshiaki Aoki of Portray Strategies and Supplies.

I’ve a powerful admiration for Japanese painters of the sixteenth to nineteenth century, and I like Tohaku Hasegawa. Then there are Jakuchu Ito, Soga Shohaku, and Kyosai Kawanabe, whose works are so fascinating even after we have a look at them as we speak, 300 to 400 years later. I need to be an artist like them sometime, and that’s the driving power behind my work.

ANJ: Are you drawn to painters of the interval, a lot of whom stay masterpieces of fusuma (sliding door) portray, due to your curiosity in structure on the origin?

YN: I believe it’s. I’m within the distinctive Japanese tradition of “shitsurae (set up)”. I actually benefit from the time I spend interested by the historical past of the place the place the art work might be exhibited and the tales related to that place, in addition to the art work and the way in which it is going to be displayed. The time period “site-specific” has been gaining floor within the Japanese artwork world just lately. Since I used to be a scholar, I’ve at all times felt uncomfortable exhibiting in a white dice, and I’ve exhibited my works at temples akin to Koumyouin (the pagoda of Tofukuji Temple) and Koseiji Temple in Kyoto.

Nevertheless, when an artist like myself works with conventional Japanese portray supplies and methods, she or he is usually considered an expressionist in a distinct style from modern artwork. Despite the fact that we stay in the identical time interval and have the identical consciousness of the identical points in our inventive actions, our works are seen by way of a filter just because they’re primarily based on the Japanese classics.

I believe it’s unhappy that we’ve got to suit our works into current classes from the start. I really feel that my works and actions are on the obscure borderline between conventional Japanese pictorial expression and modern artwork. I would really like extra folks to see my work in a flat manner. As a result of I believe artwork must be extra various.

In Japan, there have been initially ink-wash work created by literati artists who had left the secular world behind with out being sure by technicalities, in addition to Ukiyo-e prints, which have been created in opposition to an financial background and are appreciated worldwide to at the present time. I consider that there must be extra works created with free concepts that aren’t sure by the conventions of the previous.

ANJ: What’s your outlook for the way forward for your artist actions? Will you come to Beijing as soon as the pandemic is over?

YN: I wish to ultimately quiet down in Japan and work as an artist primarily based in Kyoto, as a result of Japanese supplies are of excellent high quality and simple to deal with, and I like Kyoto very a lot. Nevertheless, I’m at the moment drawn to the overwhelming enthusiasm of China.

In Beijing, I’ve a heat welcome awaiting me, together with the artist Solar Xun. Simply earlier than the pandemic, I had made a really massive sheet of paper utilizing an previous Chinese language technique, however I left the paper, supplies, and all the pieces else behind in Beijing. Anyway, now I’m trying ahead to returning to Beijing to work on my art work as quickly as attainable.

For the previous six months or so, I’ve been going to the studio of Mr. Aoki, my former instructor on the college in Japan, and have been working below his steerage as soon as once more. This yr, I’m planning an exhibition that can present not solely my works but in addition a file of my interactions with him. It will be fascinating to indicate not solely the master-student relationship between me and him, but in addition the connection between him, me and the artists of the previous.