Takeshi Mita
“ Climb on the contour line ”
2015Excellence Award
ARTIST STATEMENT
Climb on the contour line
This work’s motif is the experiences of the adventurer Kanade Osu. Although Osu’s achievements during his golden years are well known, few people know that after his retirement following a fall in which he was injured, he continued to gather and research photos and materials from the world’s most secluded locations and attempted to make ceramics using soil sent to him from many different places. Through this work, I tried to track the travels of Osu, who discovered the unknown in other people’s experiences and continued to have movement-less adventures, and I wanted to present this as an adventure for us today.
Entries form: 44 inkjet prints (A3), one object formed from a bundle of inkjet prints (A4), documentation
Selecting judge: Minoru Shimizu
By assigning the two halves of the duality of photographs — as icons and as indexes — to the digital and analog realms, the artist has arrived at a cautious understanding between the essence of photography and the fictional world. He may be fumbling a bit, as some of the details are taken a bit too far (like the earthenware), but I'm a fan of his fumbling. He has skillfully represented how we experience photographs today — namely, experiencing vicariously copies of reality — through the timeworn dichotomy between the fake and real.
PROFILE
Takeshi Mita
| 1979: | Born in Hiroshima Prefecture |
| 2000: | Completed a Master’s degree with a major in painting (art prints) at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tama Art University |
| 2009: | Held a solo exhibition “Climb on the contour line” at Shin-Puh-Kan, Kyoto |
| 2010: | Held a solo exhibition “Explore on the contour line” at Hasu no Hana, Tokyo |
| In addition to presentations as a solo artist, active in the artistic unit Koso Keikakusho with recent works including “Atopia” (Gallery Coexist-Tokyo, Tokyo, 2015) and “Save as” (Impact International Printmaking Conference, United Kingdom, 2013) | |
2015Excellence Award