Curator of the State Hermitage Museum
Aleksey Bogolyubov
I imagined the process of Daisuke Sudo’s art born in front of me. Is it set in space, on the ground, or at the bottom of the ocean?
While it could be anywhere, it does seem to be nowhere. Where exactly is the world he is trying to depict, and what inspired him to come up with these living things? Such mysterious feelings well up in me.
Sudo’s works draw us into an exotic and fantastical world, creating a bewitching and mysterious space reminiscent of the phantasmagoria that was popular in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The motifs that appear are established as characters, as if even the breath of the living things can be felt.
I feel that the works share a common poetic element.
Unlike the lovely fairylands and innocent fantasy worlds, I feel the intense and strong emotions, such as passion and energy, that well up from deep within. I imagined that this may have been an expression of the problems and conflicts that Sudo himself faced. All these real motifs and the mysterious and unrealistic environment surrounding them are packed into a single work. It feels as if the contradictions of the world, the troubles that come with living, and Sudo’s philosophical ideas, which cannot be expressed in landscapes or simple portraits, are encapsulated within.
What further enhances this atmosphere is Sudo’s high level of sketching and sense of color schemes. Specifically, in his choice of colors, it is evident that he understands how the selected colors work on his canvas and how they affect the motifs he depicts. The plants, animals, original characters, and landscapes all have complex intertwining colors that soften the mysteriousness as they are sublimated into characters in a magical world. Take, as an example of Sudo’s sense of color, his use of “red”, which is used in various works including Hate-yuku Machi. Although it is a color that prompts a sense of anxiety and danger, it is used well here as a point of equilibrium in worldview. The use of the complementary color of “red” to create a halation effect in his works is also brilliant and is evidence of his understanding of the role of color.
The motifs and landscapes painted with a unique sense of color give away a definite presence. A painting is essentially a two-dimensional world, and sometimes it is an unrealistic world that is depicted. However, the scenes and living things depicted by Sudo have a persuasive power to “exist” in the world. In the fantastical world on his canvas, everything is stretched out, turned upside down, mixed together, and colored with decorative color schemes; however, they do not diverge from reality, and they certainly exist. They are clearly “there” in the mind, as if they are moving about and transforming on the canvas, trying to create new life and reality or to fight against conflicts. The world of the painting, which should have been static, becomes denser and denser. It felt as if his art had a life of its own.
Sudo must surely be contemplating the significance of living in the real world and the meaning of existence. He was also able to find some sort of answer by embodying them as paintings. Hence, the world created by Sudo “exists” here.
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Motifs Move About, Art Comes to Life.
Curator of the State Hermitage Museum
Aleksey Bogolyubov
I imagined the process of Daisuke Sudo’s art born in front of me. Is it set in space, on the ground, or at the bottom of the ocean?
While it could be anywhere, it does seem to be nowhere. Where exactly is the world he is trying to depict, and what inspired him to come up with these living things? Such mysterious feelings well up in me.
Sudo’s works draw us into an exotic and fantastical world, creating a bewitching and mysterious space reminiscent of the phantasmagoria that was popular in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The motifs that appear are established as characters, as if even the breath of the living things can be felt.
I feel that the works share a common poetic element.
Unlike the lovely fairylands and innocent fantasy worlds, I feel the intense and strong emotions, such as passion and energy, that well up from deep within. I imagined that this may have been an expression of the problems and conflicts that Sudo himself faced. All these real motifs and the mysterious and unrealistic environment surrounding them are packed into a single work. It feels as if the contradictions of the world, the troubles that come with living, and Sudo’s philosophical ideas, which cannot be expressed in landscapes or simple portraits, are encapsulated within.
What further enhances this atmosphere is Sudo’s high level of sketching and sense of color schemes. Specifically, in his choice of colors, it is evident that he understands how the selected colors work on his canvas and how they affect the motifs he depicts. The plants, animals, original characters, and landscapes all have complex intertwining colors that soften the mysteriousness as they are sublimated into characters in a magical world. Take, as an example of Sudo’s sense of color, his use of “red”, which is used in various works including Hate-yuku Machi. Although it is a color that prompts a sense of anxiety and danger, it is used well here as a point of equilibrium in worldview. The use of the complementary color of “red” to create a halation effect in his works is also brilliant and is evidence of his understanding of the role of color.
The motifs and landscapes painted with a unique sense of color give away a definite presence. A painting is essentially a two-dimensional world, and sometimes it is an unrealistic world that is depicted. However, the scenes and living things depicted by Sudo have a persuasive power to “exist” in the world. In the fantastical world on his canvas, everything is stretched out, turned upside down, mixed together, and colored with decorative color schemes; however, they do not diverge from reality, and they certainly exist. They are clearly “there” in the mind, as if they are moving about and transforming on the canvas, trying to create new life and reality or to fight against conflicts. The world of the painting, which should have been static, becomes denser and denser. It felt as if his art had a life of its own.
Sudo must surely be contemplating the significance of living in the real world and the meaning of existence. He was also able to find some sort of answer by embodying them as paintings. Hence, the world created by Sudo “exists” here.