I saw “THE Doraemon Exhibition NAGOYA 2018” at the Matsuzakaya Museum of Art in Nagoya, the final stop on the touring exhibition.
Following the Tokyo and Takaoka (Toyama) shows, the exhibition concludes here in Nagoya.
Twenty-eight groups of leading Japanese artists took on the theme “Please make your own Doraemon”, creating a truly rich and voluminous exhibition.
Among these prominent, accomplished artists, one that stood out was the contemporary artist I’ve been paying attention to, “Tomoyoshi Sakamoto.”
He painted a giant Shizuka-chan — a work that drew the attention of children as well.
The work depicts a scene from the film “Doraemon: Nobita’s Little Star Wars.”
I love large paintings, because they give me an experience beyond the everyday. Perhaps it’s similar to watching a film on a huge screen. And we aren’t the only ones savoring this extraordinary experience — the characters on the screen have themselves stepped out of daily life and thrown themselves into a great adventure. I wondered whether I could create a device that would run this extraordinariness through, skewered on a single climactic scene, and share it. We too grow while facing crises, taking a step closer to adulthood. Stories of that growth are, in a sense, a parallel world that only “Doraemon films” can depict. I wanted to imagine that my own work might join one of their parallel worlds. — Tomoyoshi Sakamoto
The scale is clear when compared with the work next to it.Even on such a large work, Sakamoto’s signature attention to detail is finely rendered.A detail from the work.Even on such a large painting, the attention to detail shines through.Looking up at Shizuka-chan is a strange sensation, isn’t it.
It brought back memories of the solo exhibition I saw before. He’s an artist with outstanding skill at painting women.
