Junpei Hiraoka Artist Statement
In Japanese the word "complex" is causally used to describe an inferiority complex or closeness. However, I am aware that in psychology, the term refers to certain types of impulses, desires, and attachments. I have titled my work Complex to reference both of these meanings.
As an adolescent I attended an evening high school program in the outskirts of Tokyo, and there I felt the impacts of poverty and the imbalanced nature of Japanese society. I often thought about how and why societal systems exist and struggled with this reality. As an outlet to express these thoughts, I have drawn from my background in painting and ceramics and developed this body of work.
As I made these works I thought about what caused my emotional responses and reflected upon my own "complexes." I have come to believe that emotions come from an entanglement of belief systems, personal histories, and interactions with different environments. I have attempted to express this mental process of self reflection through my work as "decomposing → re-recognizing → reconstructing."
I use the plasticity of clay to express an instinctive, abstract, organic, and constantly changing form of emotion. Then, I carefully coat the body with coloured slip. This process is where I reconstruct my emotions rationally by intentionally controlling the material, colour, and texture by layering slip.
I believe that such processes, shapes, and colour combinations can express the complexity and accumulation of emotions that lead to such "complexes." By presenting these ceramic forms of layered slip, I hope to provoke an emotional reaction from the viewer, perhaps opening a window to their own inner emotions.
Translation by Ion Fukazawa and Alison Groves
私の作品は人の感情とは何なのか？ということを考えた作品になります。
感情とは、個人が持つ過去の記憶や周りの環境、思い込みなど、様々な情報が
複雑に絡みあい、蓄積されたものから発せられるものだと考え
それら感情の根源を粘土や色を通して、『分解→再認識→再構築』し表現しました。
この作品では、粘土と自身のバックグラウンドにある絵画の要素を用いて制作しています。
粘土には、アクションを加えると形状を記憶し、そのまま形に残す可塑性という性質があり
粘土を殴り現れたこの凹凸のある母体は、本能的、抽象的、有機的な、
常に変化する感情の形態を表しています。
そして、この母体にかかっている色泥しょうでは、本能や無意識ではなく、
色やその色の乗せ方、色を乗せる順番などコントロールされた理性的部分を
表現しています。
プロセスや形、色の組み合わせにより、感情の蓄積や複雑さを表現し
鑑賞者に感情とは何なのか？を問うことで、人に様々な感情の裏にある背景を
呼び起こし思考、想像させることを目的としています。