SUMMER 2023 EDITION
ASPEN ART MUSEUM
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lamps. I feel that his romantic works will enrich the presentation. TT As a Japanese artist, can you speak a bit about your relationship to Americana and US culture, particularly mainstream and popular culture? Is there a critique being made on your part or is it more personal than any- thing else? UI I was born and raised in Japan. When I painted familiar motifs in oil, I had no qualms about the fact that they were American or European in feel. Japan is known for its unique otaku culture, but the motifs that I myself deal with are very personal and I have never consciously tried to put them in any context. TT What does your painting pro- cess entail? Can you give me a snapshot of what your studio practice looks like? UI I generally take pictures on my iPhone, print them out on paper and then paint on canvas as I look at them. My studio takes up most of the living room of our family home. There is not much of a boundary between my per- sonal and professional life. I work while spending time with my family, and I work while cooking. TT Humor seems to permeate your work as well. Can you talk about how it becomes a subject for you? UI At first, I do not have a partic ular theme in mind and I choose elements at random and arrange them. But as I rearrange them to achieve a satisfactory composition, change the cast and consider dramatic lighting, a story naturally emerges. It’s always funny and makes me laugh. I hope that each viewer will interpret the work according to his or her mood at the time, but I am also more than happy if they see it as just a still-life painting. Perhaps the humor in my work is a fine line between frankness and silliness. TT Aside from childhood toys and your use of landscape, or specifically foliage, you often paint food in various permutations. How has food become a significant player in your oeuvre? UI My favorite place in the house is the kitchen. My childhood dream was to be a pastry chef. I wanted to whip cream and frost cakes all day. It was definitely Western painting that sparked my interest in painting food. As a child, I was shocked by the expressive power of oil paintings, which are more realistic in terms of texture and even ripeness than the depthless, flat paintings of Japanese painting. I love oil painting. I prefer still life and landscape paintings to other subjects, and food is a wonderful motif that easily appeals to the viewer’s five senses. When my eyes grew tired of looking at academic paintings in pursuit of realism, Manet’s still lifes, depicting food in a fresh and delicious manner with a few brush strokes, gave me another shock. I thought it was very cool. I think oil painting is the best way to express the freshness of food. I feel this especially when painting buttered toast, where I use a knife to apply butter-colored oil paint to the canvas as if I were actually spreading butter on toast.
sympathetic to the lyrics of Puccini’s opera, Tosca : “‘The stars were shining.’ Never again will this happiness return just this way . Anamnesis both fulfills and lacerates me.” Roland Barthes says that “the imperfect is the tense of fascination: it seems to be alive and yet it doesn’t move: imperfect presence, imperfect death; neither oblivion nor resurrection …”. My solo exhibition at Union Pacific in London in 2022 was titled “Reminiscence”. My works are very ordinary paintings that capture a moment in mundane, everyday life. Each day seems to be a repetition of the same thing, but in reality, time is definitely moving on. The source of my work is somewhat sentimental, coming from the feeling I have every day that I will never see this wonderful moment or situation again. I am especially struck by the joy and sadness of young lovers I see on the streets, who see nothing but each other. Knowing that their passion cannot last forever, I am tempted to use soft toys to preserve their happiness in my paint- ings. This is one of the recurring motifs in the “Lovers” series (2020–ongoing). TT The premise of the show in Aspen is to invite contemporary artists to showcase their own work alongside pieces borrowed from private collec- tions in the local community, selected by the artist. I know, as of today, you are still deliberating between two works: Thomas Moran’s Grand Canyon of Arizona From Hermit Rim Road [1913] and Georgia Engelhard’s White Mountain [c.1930s]. Both works are quite different from each other and, more prominently, from your work as well. And yet, both works hail from two different periods/ traditions of American landscape paint- ing. Can you tell me a little bit about this choice and perhaps how landscape painting comes into focus in your work, particularly “Lovers”? UI In romantic landscapes of the Hudson River School, or in images of snowy mountains by Engelhard, lovers are often shown leaning against the branches of a riverside tree, convers- ing about hopes for the future. I think either pairing feels positive and natural; I am looking forward to it. I felt that a sculpture was needed in the exhibition and I immediately thought of Austrian artist Soshiro Matsubara’s work with
UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS
Zeinab Saleh: June 22—July 22, 2023
Chase Hall: July 27—August 27, 2023
Ulala Imai: September 1—October 1, 2023 Stanislava Kovalcikova: October 6—November 5, 2023 Guglielmo Castelli: November 10—December 10, 2023
Terence Trouillot is senior editor of frieze . He lives in New York, USA.
Issy Wood: December 14, 2023— January 14, 2024
Ulala Imai’s show runs from September 1 to October 1; it is part of the ongoing program “A Lover’s Discourse”. Discover more via our website: aspenartmuseum.org
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