井上実は1970年生まれ。

東京造形大学の絵画科に入学しますが、1年で退学。フランスで絵画を習得すること目指し、留学します。
しかし、当時のヨーロッパおける美術の最先端は、ダミアン・ハーストやハンス・ハーケのような視覚に強く訴えるコンセプチュアルなインスタレーションであり、井上のめざす「キャンバスに筆で絵を描く」とは離れた表現が主流であることに打ちのめされ、帰国します。
油絵の具とキャンバスを用いた絵画表現を習得したいと制作を続けていた井上は、帰国した日本で《ニューペインティング》*が注目されていることを知り、「絵が描ける」と喜びます。
150号キャンバスの大作数点で挑んだ個展は、しかしながら自身の納得のいくものではありませんでした。
「コンセプト」を制作の根幹に据えるということに挑戦しますが、何をコンセプトにして良いかわからず、色数を制限するというルール決めで仕上げたこれらの作品は、「自分の絵を描いている気がしない、やみくも（に描いた）」ものでした。

しかしながら本人の言う「満足できるものではなかった」これらの作品は、後の彼の絵画に通底するものがあり、少しずつ自分の絵画を獲得していく過程において重要な役割を担ったと考えられます。

 

その後、白い四角い紙を切り、また四角に戻した切り絵を発表し、美術評論家に好評だったものの、切り絵ではなく絵を描きたいという思いから、切り絵で表現していた観葉植物の葉をキャンバスと絵の具に置き換えて描きます。
絵に戻したことに安堵しながらも、油絵の具を技術的に使いこなせないまま美大受験、退学したこと、「現代の美術はこうあらねばならない」という思い込みと、自分のやりたいことのギャップを埋めることができずにいました。
しかし、2000年に入ったことを時代の区切りと感じ、半ば強迫観念のようになっていた「現代美術であること」をやめ、自分の描きたいものを描きたいように描くことを決意します。

 

その後彼の作品は、制作過程で課題を見つけ、それを乗り越えるべく真摯に取り組みながらも、「絵作り」という作為を徹底的に排除するというものになります。
スナップで撮った道端の草叢を「描く」という行為のみで描き、修正や全体を見ての調整もしません。
そのようにして描かれた彼の絵画には、控えめな印象ながらも得体の知れない芯の強さがあります。
脱人間中心主義・ポスト人新世についての芸術論が盛んに取り交わされている昨今、井上があれほど挑戦しては押し戻され、結局は捨てたはずの「現代美術」の中にいつの間にか辿り着いていたことは興味深く、エキサイティングでさえあります。

 

本展は、現在WallsTokyo のウェブサイトに公開されている井上実作品の一部を展示するものとなります。
この機会にぜひ、ギャラリーに足をお運びいただけましたら幸いです。

 

*ニューペインティング
1970年代後半から1980年代にかけてアメリカ、ドイツ、フランス等で盛り上がりを見せた美術の様式。
難解なコンセプチュアル・アート、ミニマル・アートに対する反動のようなかたちで興り、神話や歴史といった物語性、人物などの具象表現、荒い筆致による心情表現などが特徴といえる。

 

 

Inoue Minoru was born in 1970.

He entered the painting department of Tokyo Zokei University, but dropped out after one year. He went to France to study painting.
However, he returned to Japan after being struck by the fact that the cutting edge of art in Europe at that time was conceptual installations that strongly appealed to the visual sense, such as those by Damien Hirst and Hans Haake, and that the mainstream expression was far removed from Inoue's goal of "painting with a brush on a canvas.
Inoue, who had been working to master painting expression using oil paint and canvas, was delighted to learn that "New Painting "* was attracting attention in Japan upon his return to Japan.
He was delighted to learn that he could paint. His solo exhibition of several large paintings on No. 150 canvases, however, was not satisfactory to Inoue.
He challenged himself to place a "concept" at the core of his work, but he did not know what concept to use, so he decided to limit the number of colors in his paintings.

However, these works, which he says "were not satisfactory," have something in common with his later paintings, and are considered to have played an important role in the process of gradually acquiring his own style of painting.

 

Later, he published cutouts of white squares of paper, cut and re-cut back into squares, which were well received by art critics, but his desire to paint instead of cutouts led him to replace the foliage of the ornamental plants he had expressed in his cutouts with canvas and paint.
Although he was relieved to return to painting, he was unable to bridge the gap between what he wanted to do and the assumption that "contemporary art must be this way" and the fact that he had taken the art school entrance exam and left without being able to technically use oil paints.
However, he felt that the year 2000 marked the end of an era, and he decided to quit "being a contemporary artist," which had become a kind of half-obsession, and to paint what he wanted to paint, the way he wanted to paint it.

 

His work since then has become one in which he thoroughly eliminates the artifice of "making pictures," even though he finds challenges in the process of creation and works diligently to overcome them.
He paints only the act of "painting" the roadside grass and weeds that he has snapped pictures of, and he does not make any corrections or adjustments to the overall image.
His paintings created in this way have an unobtrusive impression but an unobtainable core strength.
In these days when there is so much discussion about de-anthropocentrism and post-humanocene art, it is interesting and even exciting to see how Inoue has somehow found his way into "contemporary art," which he had tried so hard, only to be pushed back and eventually abandoned.

 

This exhibition will feature a selection of Minoru Inoue's work currently on view on the WallsTokyo website.
We hope you will take this opportunity to visit the gallery.

 

*New Paintings
A style of art that flourished in the U.S., Germany, France, and other countries from the late 1970s through the 1980s.
It emerged as a reaction against the esoteric Conceptual Art and Minimal Art, and is characterized by its narrative nature, such as mythology and history, figurative expression of figures, and emotional expression through rough brushstrokes.

 

 

Exhibition view : wallstokyo NEWS