Yuko Nii Artists Statement
My approach to art might be considered a Zen approach combined with Western philosophy. Zen teaches that the word is timeless, the moment of “now” is eternal, and the past and the future are merely illusions. Normally when we see things as “having happened” or about to happen, we are just seeing different aspects of the one eternal Now. The view from our individual aspect in the eternal gives us the illusion of linear time with past and future. But actually all events occur at the same time, the one time.
Looking from the oneness of things to the duality through which we view the world, by which we are able to distinguish among things and act within it, I am always consciously aware of that Western concept of dualism (opposites) such as hot/cold, soft/hard, expansion/contraction, stable/unstable, tranquility/uneasiness, etc. It is through the relationships and interactions of these opposites that life takes form to create living activity and dynamism. And it is the tension between these opposites that gives u a feeling of expansion and lyricism.
As Kandinsky tried to interpret music into the visual language of painting, I wanted to express the concept of the philosophical synthesis of Zen and Western philosophy in my painting. It gave me a great challenge.
First, I chose stone as my subject matter, not as a copy from nature, but from imagination, for stone for me exists in the timeless, eternal world. I also feel close to stone, perhaps because it is a part of nature that has been so familiar to man throughout the ages, and because I am originally from Japan, a country whose traditions, life, philosophy and spirit coexists harmoniously with that of stone.
In my stonescapes, monumentally large stones are piled one upon the other, making precarious balance, or falling down, or shooting up into the air. This feeling of uneasiness or instability of movement is lessened by the eternal soft lighting behind the canvas, thus creating a tension between stability and instability, tranquility and uneasiness, giving the feeling of expansion and lyricism. At the beginning, the stones in my paintings were quite large. But as I continued to paint more of the stone series, the size of the stones became smaller and smaller, changing to pebbles, and finally became grains of sand, just as nature causes weathering phenomenon over a long period. After that, I started painting dunescapes. Dune is how nature shapes grains of sand.
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It is interesting to note that stone and dunes are made of the same substance, but they are quite different in appearance and characteristics. Stone seems immutable, solid, heavy, powerful and monumental, which suggest a masculine nature - “Yin.” And stone goes through long weathering process to transform into sand and dunes with soft lyrical flowing appearance which suggest a feminine nature -“Yang.”
In my dunescapes I use a technique called “dotism.” By painting innumerable dots with complimentary colors side-by-side, optical repulsion and fusion elicit a tension and excitement in the eye and mind. The dunes’ undulating surface, like ocecan waves, dissolving and reforming, evoke a sense of uneasiness which is enhanced and held together by the precisely controlled use of dots, creating a poetic lyrical quality. The concept has to do with the substratum of life itself, eternal newness and change, all at once and together one, the parts and process creating a monumental whole. For in Zen, all is one thing, even the multiform transformational dualism of Western thinking.
The dunes represent open spaces with infinite possibilities, endless empty stillness within which change take place at an immutably slow pace, well beyond our ability to perceive. When I paint I am totally absorbed, and hours go by as if in fugue, I am neither hungry nor thirsty. I feel I am in a deep meditation, in a timeless world, far removed from immediate natural human concerns. Stone and dunescapes allow me to find inner peace, retreat from the hasty crowded world we live in.