Inoue Nao

Concept written in 1998 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

I continue striving to represent the story of mankind through the limited means of drawing (not painting). From the early stage of drawing, I have felt that choosing a theme and depicting it through pencil and watercolor suits my nature.

I was born in Toyama, along the coast of the Japan Sea, which is known for its heavy winter snows as well as its clear waters throughout the rest of the year. Maybe that's the reason I like water rather than oil. As a child, I preferred reading nursery stories to myself and drawing pictures with crayons and colored pencils to the lively outdoor games of other children. A child in solitude I was.

In my high-school days, I met one teacher of philosophy, who told me about "the time flowing to the death" and "the time not belonging to that."

In 1979 I began to draw pictures in the kitchen only with pencils. During the first decade "time flowing around myself" was the theme. Pencils were the stoic means suited to express the sensibilities between 'myself' and 'the time'.

In 1992 I first happened upon 'white dusters' and, at the same time, got the theme of "the story about mankind", which I had wanted to draw about, but I had been unable to do. I wanted to "be above an individual" and "understanding mankind in its entirety. That means "maintaining a sensibility of the problems of our times" as well as "searching a timeless entity."

But it is so difficult when too many of the problems of our times remain unsettled. Ever since nuclear weapons were first produced in the mid-1940s, all other stories pale before the overwhelming theme of nuclear weaponry.

If ever there is a theme in our times, it lies in looking at living from the viewpoint of individual deaths and reminding ourselves about the meaning of doing so. This is our last bastion of reality in this virtual reality world.

When I first happened upon 'white dusters', they struck me as the ultimate symbols of mankind-people who were unable to escape from a sense of emptiness, deprived of their individualities and alienated from their essential places in life. Also, it seemed to me that each empty 'white duster' could serve a symbol of man having touched eternity and become silently humble. Although they are in themselves extraordinary, the dusters seem to clearly express our present state of being.

I want to see 'white dusters' standing in the seamless expanse that connects with universe and in time that traces to the mythological age, in which they can regain their solemnity as human beings.

Concept added in 2006 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Eight years have passed since I first wrote the above passage. This implies that I have been drawing "white dusters" for 14 years. I am surprised to realize that I have had such patience. Eight years ago, I found it rather difficult to explain myself. I attempted to explain as to why I chose white dusters as the theme for my drawings. Now, I believe that I chose them because they are really suitable to express the feeling of present day human beings, and they allow me to have much wider command on my own drawings.

In fact, I have been drawing white dusters in sceneries thus far, which is rare in contemporary art. Contemporary poems still comprise different types of sceneries while contemporary art does not. The poems of Paul Celan prove that sufferings, guilt, and lyricism can coexist within the field of language. However, this may prove to be difficult in the field of art. Lyrical sceneries make us feel guilty or hypocritical after incidents such as the Holocaust or the Hiroshima bombing. Accordingly, contemporary art depicts the world of a child, the field of science, useless industrial goods, and abstract works that resemble design, or it reveals nothing but "agony".

As human beings, remembering our pleasurable experiences dulls our memory of sufferings, which is actually a type of sin. After unbearable sufferings, is it completely impossible to recuperate oneself as "an indispensable existence"? I feel that further efforts are required to explore this possibility.

I always draw thinking of only an individual somewhere and not of a mass of people.