When I was young, I
couldn’t watch horror movies. I was said to be a timid girl who covered her
eyes with her hands, but couldn’t help but running away, frightened by the
sound of movies and unable to turn the volume down.
As I grew up,
when I made up my mind to do a bit of an experiment and watched a quite famous
horror movie series, gazing it with my heart trembling, what made me
embarrassedly surprised was the fact that the movie was less scary than my
usual nightmare. The fear constructed by such a movie could not reproduce any
of the fear made by the “imagination” in my mind and heart.
The origin of
the fear that threatens me and makes me feel anxious is mostly created in my
imagination. Eventually, I come to realize that the true nature of the fear
that I am facing is myself, which I myself construct and encounter.
My works are
an effort in which my internal and external individual “selves” meet and
recognize each other, become aware of the irony of their differences and grope
for the way of coexistence, trying to overcome the uneasy anxiety and the life
of discontent through disenchantment of “being awakened.” I call it by myself,
“my work is a battle ground where the monsters clash against each other.” I
recognize that there is an irony as in the fact that my reflection in a mirror
raises her opposite arm when I raise my arm in the real world. Another me in
the mirror also notices my criteria and desire in the real world that is
outside of the mirror. But both of us know very well that we coexist as one
entity and cannot run away from each other. This draws out an extreme fear. I
intend to depict the moment of instability where the contradictory beings meet,
become distorted and disturbed, emitting anxiety. It is part of effort for my
“overcoming.” I would like to accept the uneasiness and anxiety of fear and denial
that are poured onto myself on the moment of coexistence by “being awakened.” I
would like to overcome the fear by accepting my own contradiction, imperfection
and insecurity. (Some people call the figurative outlook of my works as ‘double
self-image.’)
I do not want to
be restrained by the fear that I generated and the imperfection of my own. The
pain from the clash between my internal monster and the external monster will
become a stimulant for me to be awakened.