B omma

You spent your childhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Japan, has this influenced your practice?

My childhood experience has been influencing a lot of my art works. Especially, being a stranger at a young age created my basic imagination. I feel nostalgic when I read books by García Márquez.

Being a stranger influenced your work?

Many art lovers who are interested in what I create have said my works are not alike to other Japanese artists and they consented when I explained I spent almost 10 years in abroad. Probably I am not much opposed to mix things from different cultures because of that childhood. I am also interested in crossbreeding and Shinbutsu-Shugo (mix between Shintoism and Buddhism).

What do you consider as influences-references?

I often try to study forms of nature from plants and forms of random from thickets. Japanese old masters, I like Shohaku (曾我蕭⽩ and Enku (円空). In my 20s I spent lot of time visiting temples to see the buildings, gardens and sculptures. That also influenced me a lot. I prefer to make installations which have strong frontality.

Where will does your work get its roots?

Since I was little, I loved going to museums. I was thrilled by the bones of dinosaurs, old vases and sculptures. It’s still the same.

Do you put them on the same level?

I had an idea that if aliens or intellectual life form finds a huge size museum like the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum after the destruction of mankind, they will see lots of artifacts which have different roots, from one place. I don’t know why I love them but I love things that have a presence.

It seems that your work is a bridge between two worlds, real and fictional?

My artworks are created by mixing images from different places/periods and made as “fictional ancient artifacts”. I am interest-ed in forgery or misinterpretation which change the purpose and meaning of things unintentionally.

Would it be like a work whose attribution would be false, for example a work found that would not be signed and that would be a sort of in-between?

Yes, kind of. It is difficult to explain but I want make artworks that were not made by someone specific or that have existed before I make. I am not trying to create a story. I am interested in the system of birth of a relationship.
I often put things which I did not make like stones, plants and woods. I use them in my exhibition to make tensions not to create a story. The tensions are made from relationships between things and things. I think if the installation succeeded in having complicated tensions, that can bend the space and time. Probably, what I am trying to do is to make things that do not belong anywhere. Then the works will have float feelings.

What is your working routine?

Take a time to look at the work in progress ­before moving my hands.

How did you work? Can you tell me about the specific clay you use?

Before starting to make new works, I often do sketches or prepare photos. But everytime I try to invite unexpectedness to my work. I leave some space for change in production. I want my works to be like found objects and unexpectedness often affects as erasing intention. I think ceramic is a good material for that idea because I can not control them perfectly. I use black clay and special black glaze which has an effect like old Japanese tea bowls. I like the idea to make all of them in black even though they were made from different motifs.

How is your work evolving?

I am planning more large-scale installations.But basically I want to keep on doing what I am doing today.

How do you title your artworks?

BC means Black Ceramic and the numbers are yymmdd the date finished modeling. The idea came from old sculptures which have numbers written on by the finders. The purpose is the same as the idea to make all of them in black. It is maybe a forcible harmony.

Your canvas shows that you make some textured paintings, as a sculptor working on a 2D canvas. Do you have a need for volume, work on the material?

I started the textured painting series in 2009. I stopped making them for a few years but recently started again. The idea came from Sand mandala, old tapestries and mosaic floors. I thought an image made by a gathering of small color parts could have some kind of vibration. It really takes time to finish this painting. Need to serve a small grain of paint one by one. This process is like the growth of a plant.

What do you think about working with bronze?

Since I started making sculptures, I have touched many different materials but bronze was always a special material to me. Because my hero artists such as Barry Flanagan, Kiki Smith and Pablo Picasso used that material. So I am very happy to have this opportunity and hope to make bigger ones in near future. Bronze is an attractive material because of it’s texture but also it is a material of the history of sculpture.

Movie references?

The Days of Eclipse. Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks. Apocalypse Now. Naked Lunch.

Music references?

Ornette Coleman. Chet Baker. Thelonious Monk. Gustav Mahler. Eric Dolphy. Herbie Nichols. Samson François. Marc Ribot. Elvin Jones.

Art references?

Tokyo National Museum. Matthew Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle. Dia:Beacon. Barry Flanagan. Anthony Caro. Bourdelle Museum. Pierre Huyghe at Museum Ludwig. Shohaku (曾我蕭白). Enku (円空). Haniwa. Dogu.