Rieko Fujinami: Artist Statement

In my artistic career, I have expressed myself using many different media, including etching, fresco secco, copper tempera, glass
painting, frottage and drawing, and recently with.digital imaging and collage. No matter which medium used, I have tried to express
a common theme: the spirit of life in a world in which all physical objects eventually meet their destruction.

Through all of these works, I have wanted to express the notion that, although living things cannot resist the ravages of time, their spirit(s)
can and will outlast their physical existence. While our physical forms will be destroyed through the flow of nature and society, I want
to believe that our existence will unquestionably survive in our "spirits".

I have pursued my desire and conviction, that there is an immortal spirit, by alternating the making and showing work with two rather
different themes. I have entitled these two themes "Exploration of Non-Existence" and "Azilt"
(from the Hebrew word meaning "overflow").

"Exploration of Non-Existence" questions the existence of living things. I begin by asking whether a living thing, which I perceive,
or which is generally perceived as visually existing, actually does exist in the physical form in which it is seen. Then, by liberating it
from its physical form, I look to find its essence, and then describe it in my work.

"Azilt" is my attempt to take into myself the archetypal memories locked inside objects. I don't try to seize on the
objective existence and appearance of a thing. Rather, I try to grasp the latent existence with which the object describes itself through
its history of interaction with people, and through their memories of it. My own deep consciousness and memories react with this latent
existence, and the results of this interaction flow into my work. With both of these approaches, I strive to express the non-physical spirit
in a physical way in my art.

I believe that the way I handle space in my work may be rather unique. I am not attempting to express space by merely showing the
juxtaposition of two items. Rather, I believe that the space in which the object exists is created by the spiritual energy emitted by
the object, so that space is created from the object itself. This is a reflection of my single-minded focus on the object my art
seeks to describe.

In my work, whether the subject is a person or a plant, I do not try to make comparisons by describing how the object sits
in relation with other objects, or how its color differs from the colors of other objects. Instead, I give the object its existence
in my work, and describe the space around it as I think it should be. For example, with fresco secco, I often create a surface
reminiscent of a deteriorating wall revealing a human form which might be either disappearing or emerging. With the "frottage
and drawing" technique I showed a plant on a background of Japanese paper, which had been partially scorched. In many of my
etchingsI have taken the (concept) of the deteriorating physical world even further by distressing the copper plates in weak acid for
days (or weeks) before beginning the drawing process. The resulting pock marks, pits, and ragged torn edges on the plate.

In my recent mixed-media Locus series, created with a combination of digital photography, photo sensitive polymer lithographic
plates the etching press, and painting, the plant imagery moves further away from the representational. The physicality of the objects
becomesmore abstract and hazy, letting (only) the spirit remain.

In Japan the nine Locus images were also published as an Artist Book in an edition of 10, in which the images were interleaved with
fragments of poetry that I composed in my native Japanese. The words tell no story, but attempt to further evoke the timeless memory
caught in the DNA code of the plants which transcends time, space and physical life and death.

I an finding that some of the most recent frescos are also moving more toward the abstraction of forms begun a few months ago with
the Locus works. What began with the photographic vocabulary of focus and grayscale of those small works has expanded into my hand
drawing style in the frescos.