I collect found objects and use them as mediums for my installations and drawings.

 

The found objects carry an infinite past and an infinite future that I am not able to attain.  My hand lies in a place where the past and the future meet.  My body is also an existence that carries an infinite space and time.   

 

Things are owned only momentary by human beings; Land, objects, even our bodies, nothing belongs to us forever.  The found objects I collect indicate this truth that is difficult to express.  I live the moment of forever when I relate to those mediums.

 

I depict the places and the subjects that belong to no one. The unheard voices of drift woods, stones, paper scraps and other discarded objects lead me to do what I do.  The world without the owner is also a place that everyone holds.  Everything that exists in this world will eventually change its form, always in a fate of flux.  In that matter, everyone and everything is connected.  My works will also to be leaving my hands, placed on hands of others, then over a long time, become ashes and dust.

 

I feel that these thoughts come from the Buddhist Setsuwa tales and the Buddhist Scripture which my father, who is a monk, has told me since my childhood.  Living in a contemporary society where it is not possible to live without trying to possess or to take, Buddha's teaching seems far from me.  I hope to be closer to his ideas through my work.  Making work is an act of self observation, seeing myself struggling and swaying in contemporary life.  As in the Buddhist Scripture where a mirror is often compared to a mind , my work is also a reflection in a mirror .

 

                                              

                                                        2018.Jun.2     Fumito Urabe​