窓枠の叛乱（アーティスト・ステートメント） / Rebellion of Window Frame（Artist’s Statement）

展覧会を二度に分けて展示をするプログラムとなり、「窓枠の叛乱」はその2回目にあたる。1回目にあたる展示「中庭の束縛」は、未発表のまま長年眠っているドローイングの展示であった。すでに描き終えてしまった作品と向かい合うことは、主観的な愛着よりも時間の針が振幅して棘にもなりかねないので、自分の中に出口のない「中庭」を作り束縛の塀を張り巡らした。そうした対面の作業から余剰が生まれれば、「中庭」から外界に繋がる通路への扉を作ることが出来るのではないかと考えた。幸いにして余剰が生まれたが、唐突に窓を構成する四本の枠がばらばらと舞い降りてくるイメージにおそわれた。このばらばらになった窓枠は、まるで「ニーチェの馬」のように役割を投げ出したのだ。今の、この世界の許しがたい状況下で何も出来ない私が発狂する前に、まるで身代わりのように、窓枠が叛乱を起こしたかのようだ。

これは絶望だろうか、それとも新しさへの誘惑なのか。

もし新しさへの誘惑が少しでもあるとすれば、窓には絵画のフレームのような眼差しをもっているからだ。扉は出入り自由だが、窓は複雑な「目」のように境界線的な存在でもある。

時折、私の 脳裏には窓全体が図になるものを何も持たず、地となる平べったい空だけの風景が浮かぶ。風が運ぶ汽笛の音や鋭い野鳥の声、囚人が逃げた夜のヒステリックな警報の音が図となることもあるし、窓枠の隅に雪の吹き溜まりを見つけることもあったが、刻々と色を変えていつしか暗闇になっていく風景を飽きることなく眺め続けた日々がある。それは終焉ではなくいつか来る新しさへの誘惑ではなかったのか。今、私はその誘惑に身を任せてみることで、過去を歩きながら実に向かう図の風景を描き写す試みをしてみようと思う。

Artist’s Statement

The exhibition program at the FUJI GALLERY SHINJUKU is divided into the “Shackled to the Courtyard” exhibition and the “Rebellion of Window Frame” exhibition. The first show featured a collection of drawings that had remained unpublished and dormant for many years. Confronting works that had already been completed felt less like an act of subjective affection and more like the pendulum of time swinging dangerously close to prickly thorns. This led me to construct a metaphoric "courtyard" within myself, erecting walls of restraint that left no exit. I thought that if the process of such confrontation were to produce a surplus, it might allow me to create a door leading from the "courtyard" to a passageway that connects to the outside world. Fortunately, such a surplus emerged. However, I was suddenly struck by an image of the four frames of a window disintegrating and scattering downward. Like Nietzsche’s Horse, these scattered window frames seemed to abandon their roles. In the intolerable conditions of this world, where I find myself powerless to take any meaningful action, it felt as if, before I could descend into madness, the window frames had risen in rebellion as if to take my place.

Is this despair, or is it a temptation toward something new?

If there is even the slightest temptation toward newness, it must be because the window possesses a gaze akin to that of a painting’s frame. While doors allow free passage, windows are complex, boundary-like entities that function as intricate "eyes."

At times, my mind conjures up an image of a window with no “figure” to hold, containing only the flat expanse of a sky that serves as its “ground.” Sometimes the sound of a train whistle carried by the wind, the sharp cries of wild birds, or the pulsating alarm on the night air, as a prisoner escaping becomes the figure. Other times, I notice a drift of snow piled in the corner of the window frame. There were days when I gazed tirelessly at a landscape that shifted its colors moment by moment until it inevitably faded into darkness. Those days were not an end but a temptation toward a newness yet to come. Now, by surrendering myself to that temptation, I aim to trace the figure's landscapes that emerge as I walk through the past and toward fruition.

Seiko MATSUSHITA / 松下誠子