Guest Artist: Kazuto Muraki, Tokyo University of the Arts
Женщина, 2025, oil on panel, 200×170cm and Девочка 2023, oil on panel, 200 ×150cm
My motivation for becoming an artist might honestly stem from rather embarrassing reasons.
When I was 17, at that critical juncture when one must determine one’s future path, I found myself contemplating my prospects with a certain ambiguity. I've always embodied what might be considered a quintessentially Japanese personality trait—being acutely conscious of others' perceptions—a characteristic deeply rooted in our collective society where social harmony and external validation often take precedence. I secretly harbored desires to become an elite individual whom anyone would regard with admiration.
I strategically enrolled in the most academically rigorous high school my abilities would permit, intending to follow the same trajectory for university. I believed this self-conscious disposition might serve as a catalyst for personal development, so I never attempted to alter it.
However, upon introspection regarding whether academic excellence was truly my calling, I recognized a fundamental absence of passion in scholarly pursuits. Neither my intellectual strengths nor my aspirations aligned with conventional academic achievement.
Consequently, I gravitated toward drawing—an artistic medium in which I had always possessed a certain innate facility—and began aspiring toward Tokyo University of the Arts, widely acknowledged as Japan's most prestigious institution for fine arts education. This ambitious goal marked the commencement of my serious artistic practice.
Throughout this developmental journey, I experienced a paradigm shift in understanding that sustaining oneself as an artist transcends mere admission to an esteemed art institution; rather, it hinges upon one's capacity to maintain artistic integrity and professional viability beyond graduation. This realization became the philosophical foundation of my artistic aspirations.
My predilection for painting as a primary medium derives simply from my profound affinity and technical facility with this particular form of artistic expression.
In retrospect, I recognize that one of my fundamental theoretical frameworks—the hermeneutic process through which viewers interpret and assign meaning to visual imagery—likely emanates from my intrinsic preoccupation with external perception. This self-awareness has transformed what might have been a limitation into a profound artistic investigation, allowing me to channel personal psychology into universal aesthetic inquiry.
To create works with a stillness that resembles paused imagery, I paint on coarse double-thread canvas that has a texture (matière) similar to old monitors. I reconstruct photographs on canvas, then transform and reinterpret them in my mind.
Stay by Side, 2025, oil on panel, 41×31.8cm
Nuptial Light, 2024, oil on panel, 117×162cm
『華燭』
(Nuptial Light)
Contemplating the beginning of oneself. This work, inspired by the ancient Japanese wedding ceremony “Kasoku no Ten,” depicts a scene that doesn’t exist in our own memories—that day’s scenery. Within the theme of family, that moment holds special significance. The beginning of a new story where two lives intersect. There, wishes for the future drift like faint light.
In the image where white garments melt away like mist, the figures exist as if floating between reality and memory. Is it a scene from the distant past, or from someone’s memory?
The light and shadows flickering in ceremonial stillness remain in memory as a poem of life woven across generations.
Sleeptight, 2025, oil on panel, 360×240cm
『Sleeptight』
We will inevitably face moments of farewell.
These moments emerge as an "ambiguous time," where reality and unreality merge into one.
Like falling into sleep, this work invites us forth into an invisible world that exists between presence and absence.
Are those silhouettes, floating in the bluish darkness, traces of people who once dwelled there?
Their forms, lacking definite outlines, shimmer in the yellowish light,
Floating as something precious and undeniably there, yet untouchable.
"Ambiguous time" interweaves layers upon layers of meaning:
Wishes for tomorrow, departure into unknown worlds, and eternal farewells.
It exists as an eternal cycle that is both an ending and a beginning.
Through dialogue with beings dwelling in liminal space,
Our consciousness dissolves into deep tranquility.
X and Instagram IDs: @kazutomuraki