YUGEN Gallery will hold Ryusei Maeda's solo exhibition "MEMORY ITSELF" from Saturday, May 20th to Thursday, May 25th, 2023.

Pictures that remember emotions

“I don’t even think about turning it into a work, but from the photos I take every day, I pick out photos that I feel are funny and feel good. I am interested in drawing

Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1993. Inspired by music CD jackets and clothing graphics, he aspired to be an artist. Among his favorite artists are Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Barry McGee, Mike Kelly, Francesco Clemente, and Shinro Ohtake.

Majored in visual design and film at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Design. Performed at Fuji Rock Festival's ROOKIE A ​​GO-GO with the band "Valley Bowies" formed when I was in school, and an art project group "SUCC (Seika University Culture Club)" supervised by Hiroshi Fujiwara, who was a visiting professor at the school at the time. )>, and after graduating, he has been based in Kyoto, where he has been engaged in creative activities that are not bound by genre, centering on drawing works.

Scenery made up of various emotions

“From the paintings I drew while I was away from music activities, the corona crisis, and the time I spent in Tokyo, I can definitely see the scenes at that time. I want this exhibition to be the culmination of three years of changes in my environment and feelings.”

Maeda says that painting can connect with society and also keep a distance. The finished work is a kind of knitting that can only be understood by continuing to move your hands until it becomes something like a shape. A pattern of crossed threads of various memories and emotions appears.

“When I look at the pictures I drew in spring, it reminds me of the scenery and scent of the blooming flowers. I can’t put into words the things that remind me of landscapes, photos, smells, and sounds, but I think I have to remember them. It's not that I want to go back to that time, but I don't want to forget the feelings I had at that time, such as what I was thinking."

A bee perched on a flower, a praying mantis standing in a rocky mountain, a towering building in a desert area, etc., can be instantly zoomed in and out to cut in abstract paintings. In Maeda's work, which has a multi-layered screen composition, we can see the influence of the manga that he was familiar with as a child and the installations of photographers such as Tillmans.

Taking pictures is the feeling of being alive

“The pace of the world is fast, and new expressions are emerging one after another thanks to efficient means. I want to face the emotions that I can't put into words because I'm not swept away by the times, and the sensual things that I find interesting."

Maeda's works, which depict the details of everyday life that we usually overlook and the other-dimensional space that we jump from there with a super-realistic technique, express our various emotions and memories that are woven in an era of indescribable anxiety and chaos. floats dry. What is shown there as hope is handwork as art.

He says that it is "honestly exhausting" to draw lines and dots with his own hands every day. However, I believe that there is something that can only be conveyed by facing the depths of oneself and continuing to draw.

Maeda's monologue, in which he meticulously copies his memories onto paper with an ink pen in his hand. In today's world where the feeling of being alive is waning, art makes us feel that human memory is truly a physical thing.