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On Driveby - proposal for Soap Factory (March 2004)The enclosed images are from a series of one hundred paintings I made for my solo show for the project room of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mito (Art Tower of Mito), Japan in 2002. All works are 5 1/2 inches by 8 1/4 inches, painted in oil on wood. They were based on snapshots I took with a compact camera mounted on the driver's side car window while I was driving through the wheat fields outside of Spokane, Washington. They were taken randomly (without looking through the finder) at regular intervals. Their titles are a composite of the name of the road where the shot was taken, and the date the painting was made. The landscape of the wheat producing eastern part of Washington state is surreal. On one hand it looks primitive, seeming as if a few years of neglect would return the field to the original desert studded with sage. But on the other, it could not look more artificial - you would find a field of lush green on the right side, divided only by a road from a field of golden ripe wheat on left. I confess that in the beginning what attracted me to this land was the picturesque in the sense of sports car ads, but the actual experience of being there delivered an emotional impact that still continues to shape my existence today - I learned to allow myself to feel intensely blissful, soaking up the pure sun and floating in the vast sea of wheat, being fully aware that it is but a fleeting moment against the infinite flood of time. Painting, as far as I can remember, has always been a vehicle that could transport me to a similar bliss, though it was rather rare and unpredictable at that stage of my maturity. The immediacy and tactility of the paint media affords the artist with the euphoria and frustration not unlike that of playing a sport, while the infinite possibility for different styles and interpretations command intellectual and conceptual pursuits. It is this complex amalgam of potential and difficulties that makes me a lifelong addict. Added to this, and more significantly, in recent decades the very existence of painting itself has had to be defended and justified. As an active member of the contemporary art community, I share the opinion with those who find painting to be incapable of capturing all aspects of our changing society, and that its centuries-long dominance in art has created numerous problems and traps for its own relevance. Consequently, my involvement with painting has been multifaceted. First and foremost, I value the spontaneity and the liberating sensation that painting bestows upon us, but like trying to relax, it has a built-in paradox. I avoid the pressure of having to create a masterpiece. I stay away from trying to make something new, or making a statement. I abandoned thinking of each painting in terms of dollars. I shun the situation where I must fill the room with "products." It might sound like an escapism, but all these extraneous pressures make the already elusive emancipating aspect of painting nearly unattainable. This series of one hundred paintings, then, was my first definitive, deliberate and complete attempt to tackle such issues. Having brought back the snapshots to the comfort of my own abode 3000 miles away, I set out to retrace my journey on a much slower pace. Rather than making several large size canvases which would treat the subject as chosen, picturesque scenes, I resorted to focus on the feeling of driving through the area. By driving, you are somewhat distant from the land itself, while enjoying the motion created by driving for its own sake. This filter, if you will, acted as a buffer which tamed the intense visual and emotional sensation of being there. During the creation of this series, I more or less adhered to a constant pace of production - one a day, five a week, twenty a month, a hundred in five months - thus establishing another type of journey, one which uses time as its path. This journey also acted as a buffer to tame the intense experience of painting itself. By setting this constant pace, I was able to keep the distracting expectations and futile pessimism in check. Each painting was a record of the way I felt that day, and over time I could see the emotional and intellectual paths I traveled on. In the end I had one hundred small paintings to be used as modules with which to create an installation that would change according to the space and the context. This was perfect for the project room of Art Tower of Mito, which I had only visited once and had little knowledge of. Tsukasa Mori, the curator for this project, naturally knew the space inside and out, and revealed his expertise in maximizing the spatial and visual potential of the space. He treated the whole series as a conceptual piece, rather than looking at them individually, and grouped them loosely together with visual and chronological threads. It was truly a collaboration and an eye opening experience, which I strongly hope to repeat in your institution, magnificent both in terms of your space and mission. I believe that this series is equally suitable for your project room and in the larger space, perhaps interspersed among other artists' work. It would be my great honor if I could have the opportunity to work with one of your curators to give this series yet another context, thereupon another meaning.
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