When I hear the word “landscape” in talking about painting, I am at a loss about how to interpret the meaning of the word because of its profundity, but in fact, artists seem to have been creating works inspired by “landscapes” to some extent throughout the ages. The exhibition entitled “Hideki Ono: Landscape - Just Before View -” was held at TOKYO CULTUART by BEAMS. It opened in December 2008 as a division of BEAMS,known as one of ｓｅｌｅｃｔ shops (retail stores handling various kinds of brand-name clothing), under the theme of “Landscape - Just Before View -” [fig. 1] [fig. 2] [fig. 3].

     I can get a sense of the word “landscape” included in the title. However, what does the conjunction “before” also found in the title, mean here? According to a statement by the artist, “Landscape - Just Before View - refers to a thing which disappears immediately after we try to record it in our minds”. What he intended to convey us through the title of the exhibition would be shown clearly in his creations. He depicted the “landscapes” of some places in his creations. Various kinds of things which we may often see in our daily lives, such as things like mountains, tunnels, roads, houses and buildings, are depicted in exhibits in various lyrical ways. Nevertheless, all exhibits give me an unsettled impression in that the picture planes which were made using black and white or other quiet colors are unnaturally separated into some parts just like those of paintings created by the illusionist, Maurice Cornelis Escher. This unsettledness seems to be common throughout the entire eighteen exhibits shown in the venue.

     What I would like to emphasize here is that Ono has divided the picture planes into several parts in an extremely forcible manner. Here again, let me compare his works with those of Escher. In contrast to Escher’s works in which there is some kind of consistency, no coherent aspect can be found in Ono’s exhibits shown in this exhibition (all of the exhibits were entitled “untitled 2009”). For example, in one exhibit, some buildings are obscurely drawn in the middle plane in which something like a mountainside is depicted. The buildings are drawn as if they stick up from the mountain, while some purple blocks appear above the middle of the mountain [fig. 4]. In this work, the sky is colored purple in about three fourths of the picture plane, while in the remaining part of the sky on the right side of the picture is light blue. Nonetheless, the buildings dominate the two different-colored skies as if there is a stretch of sky. Ono intends to show straightforwardly the different relationships between things by aggressively using some certain colors and shapes for depicting them in the picture planes. In terms of this, Ono’s “Landscape - Just Before View -” was created based on the factiousness which is often found in paintings. In other words, these landscapes depicted by Ono are significantly different to those of the real world.

      Nevertheless, rather, I feel the essentiality of “landscape” is clearly expressed in such unrealistic scenes as depicted in his works. In cities, we often see buildings being demolished while others are being constructed at the same time. We know empirically that not all things which exist today will be found at the same place tomorrow and vice versa. Or, if we walk along a street without much care, some scene which we should have seen in the preceding few seconds may not be revived vividly. Yes, real landscapes exist fluidly and therefore we cannot memorize them accurately in most situations. Then, let me return to the artist’s statement. The phrase, “a thing which disappears immediately after we try to record it in our minds” would not mean “Landscape - Just Before View -” but a “landscape” itself. The moments when a landscape disappears just after we have tried to memorize it have been certainly recorded in these pictures.
(Translated by Nozomi Nakayama)

"Hideki Ono: Landscape - Just Before View -"
30/Oct/2009 - 19/Nov/2009
Venue: TOKYO CULTUART by BEAMS