2021
2019年の春、私はマドリードにあるMarlboroughギャラリーを訪ねた。目的はアントニオ・ロペス・ガルシアの所蔵作品を見せてもらう事だった。光を探求するうちに、色の情報を排除したモノトーンの絵を描いて来たが、目に飛び込んでくる花、物の中に私は何を見ているのか自問自答繰り返し、あるいはカメラのレンズから読み取れる光や情報を表現する中で、私は一度写実的に描く意義を考えたいと思っていた。写実画を描く画家の中でも私はアントニオ・ロペス・ガルシアの作品にひかれた。彼の絵の何にひかれて居るのか知りたい。自分の目で確かめたいと所蔵場所の一つである長崎県美術館や精通されている方から情報を得た末のマドリード行きだった。
Marlboroughギャラリーでその時見ることができたのは、ロペスの若い頃の作品一点のみ。女性が椅子に腰掛けた様子を描いたその絵は写実的に描かれた印象は無い、どこか物思いにふける印象を持つ絵で有った。
命の輝きを表現する場面で私は花を度々モチーフとして選んできた。マドリードで恐らく最も多く見たゼラニウムの造形に心をひかれ、日本に戻り花を育てる所から制作を始めた。
鉢植えから伸びる花を描くのは初めてであった。これまでは、モチーフとして生命を失った花に光をあてる事が出来る表現がしたくて、押し花やプリザーブドフラワーを使用して来た。それに反して、鉢植えの花は日々形を変え大きくなり、花は咲いては枯れを繰り返し、作品につながるまでのフォルムとしてとらえる事に困難を感じた。しかし、ゼラニウムを描いていて見えてきたのは立ち上がる炎の様な生命感やきらめく月光りの様な光りであった。
現実を見つめながら意識はモチーフの花が持つ普遍的な生命をつないで来た歴史を想像している。そしてロペスの何処か物思いにふける印象の女性の絵をしばし思い出している。
宮本佳美
2021年11月
In the spring of 2019, I visited the Galería Marlborough in Madrid to be shown some of the work of Antonio López García. In my attempts to capture the characteristics of light, I had eliminated color information to produce monochrome paintings, questioning again and again what it is that I actually see when I look at flowers and other objects, and attempting to create expressions of the light and other information picked up by the lens of my camera. During that process I realized that I would like to give some thought to the significance of painting in a realist manner. Antonio López García was one artist whose realist works held a particular attraction for me, and I decided to investigate what it was in his works that I found so alluring. Based on information from the Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art and from an acquaintance familiar with his works, I made a trip to Madrid.
At the Galería Marlborough, all I was able to see was a single work by López, painted while he was still young. Depicting a woman seated on a chair, it had little impression of being a realist painting. Instead, the woman had an air of being lost in thought.
Attempting to express the radiance of life, I have often chosen flowers as motifs. In Madrid, I was enthralled by the forms of geraniums, which were probably the flowers that I saw most of. Returning to Japan, I began a new project, beginning by growing the flowers to be painted.
Painting flowers that were still growing in pots was a new experience. In the past, I had always selected pressed flowers or preserved flowers as motifs because I could shine light on them when painting. Working with live flowers was very different. The plants in the pots changed from day to day, with flowers repeatedly blooming and withering. I found it difficult to capture them in forms that led to finished paintings. Nevertheless, painting the geraniums allowed me to see something else: a sense of life rising from them like flames, and light that glinted like moonlight.
Although gazing at the present, I am conscious of thinking about the long and continuous history of life, the universal life possessed by the flowers that have become my motifs. From time to time I recall the painting by López of the woman deep in thought.
Yoshimi Miyamoto
November, 2021
