Studies of Human Mind Series
Splashes of black ink on large, white canvases depict gigantic, bold human heads: their mouths are open or distorted in silent screams, their eyes are closed, or portraying a febrile stare. The strokes of the bamboo stick, the dripping, and the marks on the surface suggest us that the image that we are observing was created in a dynamic process, and part of that movement is still there, as reverberating from the canvas.
The head is there, floating. Cut out, yet hyper conscious. In the way Naoki Fuku depicts the heads in his series Studies of Human Mind (2015-ongoing) there is a latent violence, there is loneliness, alienation, climax. The condensed energy was released through the pictorial gesture of the Japanese artist, whose practice encompasses performative painting and drawing, as well as pictorial traditions from the East and from the West: the portait is indeed a genre that is absent, in traditional Japanese painting, contrarily to the materials that he uses – a bamboo stick and black ink – and his technique, which echoes the GUTAI movement.
Fuku’s artistic production is indeed the alchemic combustion between different compounds that he manage to select and combine according to their intensity, resulting in portraits of obsessively precise, meandric traits, or in expressionistic self-portraits.
Elisa Rusca, Berlin
Splashes of black ink on large, white canvases depict gigantic, bold human heads: their mouths are open or distorted in silent screams, their eyes are closed, or portraying a febrile stare. The strokes of the bamboo stick, the dripping, and the marks on the surface suggest us that the image that we are observing was created in a dynamic process, and part of that movement is still there, as reverberating from the canvas.
The head is there, floating. Cut out, yet hyper conscious. In the way Naoki Fuku depicts the heads in his series Studies of Human Mind (2015-ongoing) there is a latent violence, there is loneliness, alienation, climax. The condensed energy was released through the pictorial gesture of the Japanese artist, whose practice encompasses performative painting and drawing, as well as pictorial traditions from the East and from the West: the portait is indeed a genre that is absent, in traditional Japanese painting, contrarily to the materials that he uses – a bamboo stick and black ink – and his technique, which echoes the GUTAI movement.
Fuku’s artistic production is indeed the alchemic combustion between different compounds that he manage to select and combine according to their intensity, resulting in portraits of obsessively precise, meandric traits, or in expressionistic self-portraits.
Elisa Rusca, Berlin
Lost
Just like the other two series of “Study of Human Mind” Fuku’s "Lost" still approaches the controversy of the human existence and its complex inner world. Other than the two series it associates more with memories and realities, consciousness, the subconscious and the unknown. It still depicts characters and identities but in a much less drastic and dramatic way. It feels a bit as if the lost and tortured beings from Study of Human Mind found their place in the world. The artist works with a new combination of ornament and image which evokes the memory of the first small scale series Babel in my Mind. Fuku’s technique though differs in many ways and is actually based on Japanese traditions. He often uses brush pens to work on these portraits so he can catch or express a fleeting glimpse of reality before it is sucked into the complete abstract. Thin black interlacing curved lines slowly build into a construction that manifests as facial features and expresses the human form in some vague way playing with the viewer’s perception of reality. New is the artist’s inclusion of background and subtle colour which contributes to this more peaceful impression this series evokes. Like in Study of Human Mind Fuku often relies on famous characters he bans on the canvas in his distinctive style while encoding himself into those.
Just like the other two series of “Study of Human Mind” Fuku’s "Lost" still approaches the controversy of the human existence and its complex inner world. Other than the two series it associates more with memories and realities, consciousness, the subconscious and the unknown. It still depicts characters and identities but in a much less drastic and dramatic way. It feels a bit as if the lost and tortured beings from Study of Human Mind found their place in the world. The artist works with a new combination of ornament and image which evokes the memory of the first small scale series Babel in my Mind. Fuku’s technique though differs in many ways and is actually based on Japanese traditions. He often uses brush pens to work on these portraits so he can catch or express a fleeting glimpse of reality before it is sucked into the complete abstract. Thin black interlacing curved lines slowly build into a construction that manifests as facial features and expresses the human form in some vague way playing with the viewer’s perception of reality. New is the artist’s inclusion of background and subtle colour which contributes to this more peaceful impression this series evokes. Like in Study of Human Mind Fuku often relies on famous characters he bans on the canvas in his distinctive style while encoding himself into those.
Babel in my Mind
The artist’s combination of texts and images lines up with a variety of well-known examples from contemporary art and art history. The way he fills his characters’ heads with texts, though, evokes the story of the Tower of Babel according to which God disapproved of the attitude of the people who tried to reach for the sky in order to make a name for themselves and even attempt to equal him. He punished them for their arrogance by confounding their speech and scattering them all over the world. This so-called confusion of tongues also takes place in the minds of Fuku’s characters. Rudimentary pencil lines enclose a jumble of inked texts in different languages which reveal the deepest inner self of the artist. He thinks in Japanese, English, German and Russian. Those languages represent important stations in his very international career. At first glance the sketches seem to be simple and elementary, but when the viewer’s eyes embark on the combination of image and text he becomes aware of the profound content of the works.
The artist’s combination of texts and images lines up with a variety of well-known examples from contemporary art and art history. The way he fills his characters’ heads with texts, though, evokes the story of the Tower of Babel according to which God disapproved of the attitude of the people who tried to reach for the sky in order to make a name for themselves and even attempt to equal him. He punished them for their arrogance by confounding their speech and scattering them all over the world. This so-called confusion of tongues also takes place in the minds of Fuku’s characters. Rudimentary pencil lines enclose a jumble of inked texts in different languages which reveal the deepest inner self of the artist. He thinks in Japanese, English, German and Russian. Those languages represent important stations in his very international career. At first glance the sketches seem to be simple and elementary, but when the viewer’s eyes embark on the combination of image and text he becomes aware of the profound content of the works.
