Why do paintings reflect the future?

And why do sculptures give birth to the earth?

The answer is that art confronts contemporary social and cultural challenges and fulfills its mission to show the direction of the future. With their art, the artist speaks for the collective consciousness of the people, leading them to a form of compassion, healing, and compassion.

I am working far away from my hometown, Fukushima. It is also a long way from New York, where I have lived for a long time. Guam is a small remote island in the Pacific Ocean, and the horizon seen from the window in front of me is connected to every continent on earth. Therefore, it is on remote islands that aspects of contemporary society first appear. Natural disasters caused by global and climatic changes cannot be prevented by island dwellers. Like nature, which cannot be controlled, the acceleration of humanity cannot be controlled either.

In my studio in Guam, I can faintly hear the sound of the air conditioner’s outdoor unit, my pencil scratching on the paper, and my brush spinning in the glass bottle washer. My work is born from the experience of living on such an island. As an artist, through my paintings and sculptures, I express a spiritual world that moves between reality and the otherworld, and I draw with the memory of the landscape as if it were an automatic writing. Who knows if my creative process corresponds to what André Breton experienced as “surrealist automatism” in 1920. In my studio, however, I continue to work in a state of “automatic writing” or “free writing”. And on the night I drew someone’s eye, Typhoon Marwar made landfall. All of these inspirations, from the connection of coincidence and inevitability, lead me to the finished work. And as the physicality of the self separates from the spirit, my sense of touch becomes hypersensitive and the sculpture is molded. I feel the weight and the slippery texture of the clay, shaping the cells and the sea. Then, in my friend’s studio in Japan, feeling the horizon, I pour chemical resins colored from sunrise to sunset, piling them up like the strata of the earth.

The earth gives birth to the sculpture and connects it to my own body; the universe tries to connect with my spirit through the paintings. That is why I create my work.

February 5, 2024
Yumiko Furukawa