I visited Hisaharu Motoda’s solo exhibition “Monuments.” The venue was Gallery KIDO Press, on the second floor of Arts Chiyoda 3331.
Centered on six new paintings (collages), including large-scale works stretching about two meters wide, the show presented a total of eight pieces, together with two recent prints on the same theme.
The theme of the exhibition is “public sculpture.”
Motoda depicts the weathering process by which objects fashioned by human hands gradually return to nature — not as prints, but as paintings.
For example, in the new work Foresight: Statue of Saigo Takamori 1 (the piece on the right in the photo below), the image of the statue is printed onto silver leaf, the background is then rendered in watercolor, and plants are drawn spreading over and enveloping the figure.
Unlike his earlier monochrome print worlds, these are lightly tinted paintings. The beautiful interplay between the artificial forms rendered in lithography and the natural elements drawn directly by hand creates a striking landscape.
It is as though a mere statue, through the passage of time, has emerged as a monument accompanied by collective memory.
Only the statue portions are first printed by lithography onto paper prepared with silver or aluminum leaf; these are then cut out in the statue’s shape and collaged, after which drawing or painting on top precisely depicts the image of plants slowly multiplying over time.
Every piece was unmistakably Motoda’s — the show was overwhelming!
