Year: 2022
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 181.8 x 227.3 cm (71 1/2 x 89 1/2 in.)
Acquired from Ginza Tsutaya Books, 2022
Kawauchi’s paintings are composed of thick oil paint and lines drawn by scratching the surface. In this work, the heart, beast, human head, and letters are depicted with deeply carved brushstrokes. The title and the red color of the artwork strongly evoke a sense of physicality (blood and flesh) in the viewer. The way the artist captures the specific forms of this work seems somewhat blatant, particularly in how the internal organs and facial expressions are depicted. Each motif appears to be given a symbolic and signifying role. For example, the beast is associated with what is probably a jaguar because of the heart and the word “Moon”, but it is supposed to be depicted as a symbolic object. In Aztec and Maya mythology, the jaguar is one of the gods of the night and the moon, bearing a name that exactly means “heart”. Moreover, the entire painting serves as a metaphor for the body. On closer inspection, various organs such as lungs, trachea, heart, and intestines are roughly positioned where they would be in the human body, containing the beast and the figures. Life is sustained by the intake of food and Kawauchi has doubted this principle since childhood. For Kawauchi, working on this theme is nothing less than confronting the primal instincts that lie within. The thick and powerful layers of paint that support the line depictions have a physicality that seems to press forward. On this point, one should not ignore the phenomenon that Kawauchi calls “resistance of the canvas”. This does not refer to the physical fact that the overwhelming mass of paint exists there as a solid. Kawauchi’s thoughts that are contained in the painting contrarily refuse her interference from within the canvas. In other words, it is a conceptual phenomenon of “resistance”, as if the work itself informs the artist that the painting is completed. This is probably the reason why Kawauchi’s paintings are drawn in such a way as to cut through the surface layer. Lines are the traces of the artist’s own resistance to the “resistance of the screen”. Although the painting has a strong semblance of figurativeness, it could also be considered an essentially conceptual painting that expresses Kawauchi’s inner abstract concepts.
