Kenichi Ogawa

Kenichi Ogawa 2019, I would like to talk about my work. Living my everyday life, there are times when I have a feeling that I can not handle. When I have mixed emotions that can not be expressed in words, I can make a work unconsciously. A part of me observes this flow objectively. However, I should just leave it as-is; it is when I let it move naturally that a work emerges. From experience, I feel that the more I try to control myself, the more it fails to evolve into a work. The same is true for my underpants work. When I was looking at a pair of underpants getting dried at home, a desire to make a huge version of it grew. I made it up, and when I put it on, I felt as if my heart was expanding.

I would like to analyze this work in my own way. I think underpants holds a unique presence for humankind. I always cover my crotch with a pair underpants when I go out. If you are naked outside, you will be arrested by the police. A pair of underpants is an interesting being as it has a function to hide something. Historically, the fig leaves used by Adam and Eve had the same function.

Or, it could be compared with a loincloth made of ropes for a primitive person. I made this underpants work imagining it would, when installed as a public art in front of the Hilton hotel, break some of the social rules, creating, even for a fleeting moment, a sense of freedom. It is a representation of something that is used to hide a certain thing. Shifting a social way to look at things has a potential to destroy existing words and create new ones.

I think that it is important for any artist to feel the essence of an everyday event and make it into an artwork. The impetus, or the driving force behind my ceramic works is the same thing — it is emotions in every day life that cannot be expressed through words.

CV Kenichi Ogawa