水を蹴る(おのずと) / Kicking the Water (as a matter of course)
Year: 2022
Medium: acrylic on cotton
Dimensions: 112 x 146 cm (44 x 57 1/2 in.)
Acquired from Shugo Arts, 2022
A boat glides gently over the calm surface of a lake, leaving a slight trail behind it. Two figures and their shadows shimmer on the surface of the water, which reflects the greens of densely protruding trees like a mirror. In a text written by the artist himself for the exhibition that included this work, Maruyama described his feeling as he conceived the painting while looking at the scenery reflected in a puddle. “Kicking the Water” comes from that text as a metaphor for the act of blurring the boundary between the world on the surface of the water and the real world. When Maruyama paints, he lets water permeate the canvas so that the paint soaks through. The surface of the puddle Maruyama saw would have been providing a clear mirror-image of the world. Maruyama could not help but “kick” the water, “as a matter of course.” This is because, for Maruyama, painting is more than the simple replication of something. The metaphor can be read as suggesting that water is simultaneously a mirror and something uncertain. Something faint amid flux, but the existence of which is recognizable through its very uncertainty, this is what Maruyama referred to as the birth of a painting. There are lots of stories about tracing a loved one’s shadow or a reflection on the surface of water as being the origin of painting. If the intent to preserve a likeness of something that one wants to touch but cannot is what gives rise to painting, then what Maruyama hopes for may be something uncertain, beyond the grasp of even the artist himself.
