Take the Helm of Yourself!
Shoko Fujimori
January 16 (Sat) - February 13 (Sat), 2021
In the spring of 2020, we were forced to refrain from going out due to a pandemic that we never experienced before. I had to look back on the way of communication.
When I consider what I want to paint now, I reached the result of the fundamental motives for producing paintings naturally, such as living with people and wanting to leave them on the canvas and convey them to someone.
At the same time, I recalled my first visit to the Louvre Museum at the age of 17. It was the gift trip from my father who thought that it should be better to appreciate masterpieces early if I wanted to be a painter in the future. The large-scale painting, The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, gave me a shock and particularly left impressive on my memory.
When I took the catalog I bought in the Louvre Museum and turned the pages, I found the nostalgic masterpieces pictures with paint stains and dog-ears I made when I was in high school. I remembered that I put the opened catalog at the feet of the easel for reference in my production. I believe that the origin of my aspiration for a painter was here. I felt that I received a great deal of power from myself of the past.
I think I could not create the painting, Take the Helm of Yourself!, inspired by The Raft of the Medusa if I did not experience the spring of 2020.
The small half-sunken boat that keeps sailing through a sea of uncertainties. People who have a big flag, sing at full power with hope, help their friends, and never give up until the end.
The characters in my paintings are anyone in this world.
Sometimes we have fun to play with people who spend time together in society such as family, lovers, friends, and colleagues, and sometimes bargain with them by reading their thoughts each other. I think that the danger, urgency, and such unbalanced status of minds that are never constant are all healthy humanity.
2021 Shoko Fujimori
Shoko Fujimori
Take the helm of yourself !
2020
Oil on canvas
162.0 x 162.0cm
63.8 x 63.8 inch
I remember “Le Radeau de la Méduse” and “La Liberté guidant le people” that I appreciated at the Louvre Museum at the age of 17. The impressive description of crisis situations on the paintings stirred up my anxiety.
In the spring of 2020 when I asked myself what I want to create, I recalled these two paintings. A person who tries to help loved one on a boat that is about to run ashore. A person who sings songs with the guitar as hard as he can until the moment the boat sinks. A person who keeps raising a big flag even in the crisis. We are not sure the future. Even if we face anxiety like a slowly sinking boat, I hope we could hold hands with each other and link happiness as much as possible to the future.
Shoko Fujimori
The Playroom of the Narcissists
2020
Oil on canvas
162.0 x 162.0cm
63.8 x 63.8 inch
The source of this painting is a series of paintings that Balthus depicted girls who hold the hand mirrors including “Les Beaux Jours.”
I created this painting in the theme of narcissism by showing a girl who enjoys tea time in the playroom with a man who tries to play with another girl who fascinated herself by looking into the hand mirror. Behind in the details of the fun scene, there are a skull and a few arrows that are unmatchable motifs with beautiful flower and fresh fruit. I included in the arrows because it is a symbol of “shooting the heart.”
Loving oneself is sometimes egoism, but I want to accept the feeling frankly because it’s humanity.
Shoko Fujimori
Another Mind Game
2020
Oil on canvas
116.7 x 116.7 cm
45.9 x 45.9 inch
I got the inspiration for this painting from The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds by Georges de Latour and Fortune Teller by Hans Holbein.
Behind playing the Jenga game, another game has started. The woman on the right smiles vaguely and tries to steal her ring secretly while pretending to take the hand of the woman next to her warmly. Perhaps, the woman on left is aware of it so she is not looking at Jenga. Like replicating the unstable balanced Jenga that is going to break, it is a tense situation where they read the facial expression of each other. Which one will lose the balance first in the end…
Shoko Fujimori
The Smiling Skin
2020
Oil on canvas and panel
72.7 x 60.6 cm
28.6 x 23.8 inch
Shoko Fujimori
The Smiling Skin #2
2020
Oil on canvas and panel
72.7 x 60.6 cm
28.6 x 23.8 inch
I started to create this painting with my thought that I wanted to depict the best smile.
Every person has anxiety and a negative side on the back of their facial expression. It is impossible to live by eliminating all the negative sides. However, I believe that we could live happily in any era if we could share the warmth that we get by relating with others regardless of race, age, or gender even though we keep the negative side inside of our hidden part.
The reason why I purposely depicted the neon-colored blood vessel with transparent is that I want to show the uncomfortable and the freshness that the inside of the skin contains. The skins and the blood vessels represent the negative reality we have and the anxiety that is like the blood spill out when I cut the skin with a knife. I tried to make it pop with neon colors because it will be too grotesquery with real expression. They are the symbol of an image for anxiety or negatives feelings.
Shoko Fujimori
Honest Eyes
2020
Oil on canvas and panel
25.7 x 18.2 cm
10.1 x 7.1 inch
Shoko Fujimori
The Flower for You
2020
Oil on canvas and panel
25.7 x 18.2 cm
10.1 x 7.1 inch
"Honest Eyes"
The theme of this work is the same as “The Smiling Skin,” but I wanted to describe the straight eyes without lies. I attempt to make the facial expression that the viewers can interpret both smiling and dazzling.
The meaning of straight eyes in Japanese is included in “honest,” but it is difficult to imply it in English. So I entitled it “Honest Eyes."
"The Flower for You"
I made this painting like giving a flower to someone with love.
Although I did not specifically envision a specific person, I believe that it is the same feeling as giving the flower to tell my feeling to someone in the communication. The real flowers will die down soon, but the flower in the painting bloom beautifully forever.
In the big painting, I will inflate or replace the original image more and develop the situation. However, I depicted the flower as it was because I wanted to make this small work simple.