Ryuta Nakajima
(Duluth MN)
For the last ten years, my paintings have investigated in different ways the idea of superimposition, its implications and effects. Of my paintings from the last five years, there are notably three different manifestations: abstract field over the figurative, tactile field over the figurative, and figurative over figurative. Although these manifestations are seemingly dissimilar, they nonetheless are based upon the idea of superimposition as such: neutralization, fragmentation, and duration. All three aspects help to create a heterotopia, a space whose proliferation of possible meanings and relationships obscures any unifying ground, thereby dissolving each stable object into an incoherent multiplicity which would then metamorphosize into a complex and singular piece of reality. However, during my experimentation (1996-1997), I encountered a fundamental problem with this system of superimposition. I have come to recognize superimposition as a conceptual and analytical construct that dictated the production of my paintings. This construct apparently stands at variance with the experience of painting, as I conceive it. Briefly, I feel that the experience of painting is a constant oscillation between the state of "jiga" (a Buddhist term for worldly desire which roughly translates to "ego") and that of "muga" (which approximately translates to "self"). This experience is a certain drama, which consists in a complex weaving of "jiga" as the intellectual and emotional aspects within the world of logical differentiation, and of "muga" as the inexplicable fusion between the painter and Nature. Within the development of this drama, if the painter is lucky, he will be able to infuse the state of "muga" into the painting. In this way, the painting will possess the unexplainable quality of Nature and be able to exist as an individual, autonomous reality that transcends, although it may include, the painter? ideology and his socio-political environment. If the painting conveys this quality, it can thus be described as extra-temporal: it exceeds the confines of personal ideology and social or artistic trends. A strong painting is evidence of this drama; its energy derives from the painter? life force, which is transmitted to the painting during the creative process. In light of these recent reflections, it seems to me that it is essential to investigate this rather mystical aspect of painting.
Ryuta Nakajima
P-factory
