New “Japanese Painting” / New “Contemporary Art”
By Asai Toshihiro

A work of Miyake Mai is “Japanese painting” of a new style that can blend, without incongruity, into a room of a fashionable condominium or contemporary space constructed with new building materials. On the assumption that Japanese paintings have been made to fit traditional Japanese style houses while Western paintings have been designed for the walls of Western style houses or galleries, paintings of a new style made to fit present Japanese housing appeared for the first time.

“A Year,” the main work in this exhibition that was shown at Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art is now displayed in Japan for the first time. What is rare about this work is that she did not intend it for a private house but for a grand space like a museum. The motif of this work is, as the title refers to, celestial animals presiding over Heaven’s four quarters as people believed both in China and Japan; blue dragon, red bird, white tiger, and black tortoise. Those four animals (four gods) preside over the pillars (east, south, west, and north), and respectively symbolizes colors of blue, red, white, and black, as well as seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter. At the same time, they correspond respectively to the elements of water, fire, wind, and earth. In “A Year,” four paintings placed in respective color of mountings are arranged in the order of spring, summer, fall, and winter. Looking through a hole made in a painting, one can see the element and celestial animal of the next season. For instance, peeping at the autumn painting through a hole in the summer painting, one can see a white tiger. As the hole is made in the part of flames in the picture of summer, the tiger appears to be jumping through a fire ring. She does not forget to provide such carefully prepared tricks.

A trick or playfulness is a distinguished feature in her work. In the painting “God Dog” among the works in this exhibition, the part of a hole is cut off, and it is painted as if money were coming out of that hole. In reference to money, real five-yen coins are used as hanging-scroll weight (fuuchin). In case of “Old Flame,” the flames in the painting look as if they were burning fuutai, the cloth sewn to the upper crosspiece. She uses everything as a medium for expression including the formal mounting such as fuuchin and ichimonji(the narrow strips of cloth used in the horizontal areas immediately above and below the painting or calligraphy).

Thus, her ways of expression, choice of motif or theme, form of expression such as a scroll or a folding screen, excellent use of blank space, flat-looking painting, bold outlines, season-oriented display, way of making analogies, playing on words, etc. are relative to the traditional aspects of Japanese style painting, and yet there is a well balanced contemporary taste in her expression. She remarked, “Frankly speaking, I am probably unbalanced. But, now I’ve found a way to express myself, I think I’m a little better balanced.” (“Welcome Home / The works of Mai MIYAKE” published by Gallery HAN) Still, a sense of balance is impressive in her as an artist as well as in her works.

This also holds true for various artist-related goods included in the exhibition. Artist’s goods, in many cases, carry the artist’s excessive self-consciousness. Miyake’s goods are, by contrast, pleasant with her playfulness and attention paid to the maker’s intention. She shows exquisite balance between her “art” and “consumer goods.”

Contemporary art tends to go against tradition or forms as its purpose, but Miyake surmounted the difficulty, without hesitation, while preserving forms to create her new style. In that sense, it is better for us to understand that a new generation of contemporary artists has appeared, rather than a new style of Japanese painting has.

Asai Toshihiro / Senior curator, ContemporaryArtCenter, Art Tower Mito
text translated by Nishizawa Miki
text quoted from the brochure for the exhibition "Criterium 65", Oct 5 2005.