‘I really want to see nothingness in an exact way. But what I find always has meaning. So I try to wash out the meaning.’
Takehito Koganezawa is best known for his digital media, sound and light instillations, but he is also prolific in the low fi medium of drawing, forever documenting and distorting the world with pencil and sketchbook.
One definition of drawing is that, as opposed to painting, it is a line-based medium that uses an empty field; a drawing can’t conceal anything beneath it the way a painting can. In this sense it is considered an honest and unembellished art form, one which is embraced for its immediacy, informality, intimacy and humbleness.
These are all defining qualities of Koganezawa’s drawings. According to him his work is derived from thinking about nothingness; empty space that is open and without purpose – and with their beautifully free and simple lines his drawings possess that rare quality of true understatement.
‘My work is about the hole,’ the Tokyo-born Berlin-based artist says. ‘Like the hole of a donut becomes visible because of the donut, in my work I create the donut to get closer to the hole.’
Great post. I have a beautiful book of his insect drawings, I can look at them over and over again.
Comment by em — September 26, 2009 @ 12:33 am