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Junsuke INATOMI: Tsuki-yomu-hone
Reviews
Written by Satoshi KOGANEZAWA   
Published: January 21 2010

fig. 2 View from the exhition "Junsuke Inatomi - Tsuki-yomu-hone" at Gallery Buburindo, photo by the author

fig. 1 View from the exhition "Junsuke Inatomi - Tsuki-yomu-hone" at Gallery Buburindo, photo by the author

     Peering at the inside bottom of the pottery, I found there were stars. The black stars were randomly shining against the white background of the pottery just like the moon floating in the blue sky during the day. The stars stood out in a different way from the moon in the night sky.

     However, these star-like patterns did not actually represent stars. According to the artist, they were the remains of silver having dropped from the pottery on which they had been dabbed. This dropping casually happened without any intent of the artist. My understanding that perhaps they were stars may have been little bit forceful. Such traces of materials as found in his exhibits may also have been recognized in other artists’ creations if we took a close look at them.
     Despite this, it is doubtful whether the same traces found in other creators’ works would have made me bring up the image of stars similar to those in Junsuke Inatomi’s creations. This is because his works left me with the impression that stars could be naturally found at the bottom of works of pottery. This would be due Inatomi’s attempt to express one existence through each of his creations. Here, I have used the word existence as the same meaning as that of life. Life can be reworded as ‘micro cosmos’ in which there is no wonder that there are stars shining.

fig. 3 View from the exhition "Junsuke Inatomi - Tsuki-yomu-hone" at Gallery Buburindo, photo by the author

     The solo exhibition of Inatomi’s latest creations entitled “Tsuki-yomu-hone” was held at Gallery Buburindo. In this his second solo exhibition, the artist tried to transcend the field of his origin - “ceramic art”. In this exhibition, he presented ten planar works created using porcelain panels as well as about forty pieces of pottery. It is already well-known that Inatomi aims at developing his creating activities not only within the field of “ceramics”,.His works themselves have given us a strong impression as objects regardless of the degree of their practicality. This exhibition may have shown us through his new creations that he took one step further to pursue his ideal.

     Nonetheless, these planar works shown in this exhibition made me wonder about their motifs. The porcelain-panel works named “Tsuki-yomu-hone” (the titled is same as that of potteries presented in the exhibition) were made after the completion of all the pottery works newly created for this exhibition. The motifs used in the planar creations were just that, pottery. Various kinds of forms found in Inatomi’s pottery creations, such as an elongated shapes and something like a combination of cylinder and circular cone, were depicted on the panels. While in some work, only one motif was drawn in a picture, in other creations, some pieces of pottery were depicted together. In contrast to the works of pottery which were singed only once and made in a simple form except for some glittering parts made using silver, the porcelain panels seemed to be composed of complicated aspects. The outlines of the works of pottery depicted in the pictures were drawn as if they were engraved. In addition, it is notable that the color yellow, rarely be found in the stereoscopic works presented in this exhibition, was used for glazing the watercolor paintings. The texture of the paintings was rugged, which gave me a robust impression as opposed to that of the pottery works. The planar works had an uncompleted, ambiguous and thin image as a whole, as if some new form akin to that of sculptures would be dug up from them in the future. In some panels, old boards of larger sizes than that of the porcelain panels were attached on their backs.

fig. 5 "Tsuki-yomu-hone", photo by the author

fig. 4 "Tsuki-yomu-hone", photo by the author

     If Inatomi had only aimed to go beyond the field of “ceramic art”, it would not have been necessary for him to choose “pottery” as motifs to be used for making up the planar works. Why then did he select pottery for the motifs? There would be only one answer. Inatomi considers the shape of potteries as an only expression of existence. As proof of this, the porcelain panel works were not made by only using stereoscopic creations as their motifs. As mentioned above, what Inatomi attempted through this exhibition was digging one existence out of lumps of materials. This work must be conducted in an extremely similar way to that of creating sculptures. In other words, Inatomi’s three-dimensional works and planar creations had one thing in common: his pursuit of fundamental “existence” was reflected in both of them. Inatomi’s creations shown in this exhibition made me recognize the birth of something unnamed which was created beyond dualistic theory, such as useful/useless and tridimensional/planar. After viewing this solo exhibition of Inatomi’s, I must admit that I now harbor great hopes for the artist’s activities in the future.
(Translated by Nozomi Nakayama)


Related Exhibition

Junsuke INATOMI: Tsuki-yomu-hone
19/Dec/2009 - 25/Dec/2009
Venue: Gallery Buburindo

Last Updated on July 04 2010
 

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