The aim of this study is to bring into full bloom the expression of the vital energy intuited directly from nature; through the process of reinterpreting nature via drawing and realizing it in three-dimensional form through metal hammering. The idea o...
The aim of this study is to bring into full bloom the expression of the vital energy intuited directly from nature; through the process of reinterpreting nature via drawing and realizing it in three-dimensional form through metal hammering. The idea of vital energy is familiar to us, but at the same time, it is defined in various ways, biologically and philosophically. In this study, I initiated the work by interpreting the vital energy as the ‘power to move on its own’.
In summary, this body of work is a story that explores the nature of life force through two aspects of vitality intuited from nature : “the vital energy of nature” and “the vital energy of humans.” The story begins with the dynamics in the stillness found in the Sansevieria as an everyday object, and evolves into a story of the symbolic ‘self’ by projecting humanity into the movement of flames in the development of the work. Furthermore, the self is further divided into three states, each of which is revealed by the regression of the self in the narrative that flows in the reverse order of time. The ‘expanding self’, which reveals the vital energy of ‘the desire for connection’, returns to the ‘child self’, which reveals the vital energy of ‘vibrancy’, and then returns to the ‘archetypal life’ that reveals the vitality of ‘vital pulsation’. As a result, the story of Sansevieria, which invites the viewer to speculate the essence of life, ends as the essence of life itself through the narrative of the self of flame.
The narrative of the self endlessly reaching toward its source echoes my fundamental question : what is vital energy? I wanted to understand why I was moving toward life itself without realizing it, and what the identity of the life force was that enabled such a movement. I sought to bring these questions to the surface through artistic practice.
In visualizing these themes, watercolor drawing played a role in extracting the shape of the work that reinforced the narrative. Through drawing, I abstracted plants and flame to shape the visual language of nature’s life force. In addition, I developed a more narrative form by adding visual elements that reveal “the vital energy of human” such as ‘expansion’, ‘sequence’, and ‘blooming.’ Ultimately, I tried to weave together the essence of the two aspects of vitality into my own visual language through drawing.
The study attempted to implement this expression of vital energy in three dimensions through the metal hammering; with a focus on developing hand skills to enable this. Through participation in the metal hammering program at the Tokyo University of the Arts as an exchange student during the course of this study, the hammering technique was further developed. As a result, the expression in the work could be enriched, and the vitality of the metal hammering technique itself was allowed to ‘fully bloom.’
Along with this technical maturity, as the series of studies approached its conclusion, the fog surrounding the identity of the vitality I initially sought to uncover gradually lifted. The traces left by the research process itself came to reveal my own vitality, embedded within the act of making. In this sense, the awareness of being alive in the act of making lay in the process of transforming a vast and elusive question about the meaning of life into a narrative of a living, breathing self through natural materials, and in realizing that narrative through my own hands.
Through this work, I hope that viewers may sense their own vitality and its forward movement, as they encounter a long, unfolding story that begins with concrete, everyday objects and expands toward a understanding of life.