A study of the relationship between subjectivity, time and memory LV

The consistent concept underlying Hagino's works revolves around the relationship between subjective perception and painting. This constitutes an approach directed towards the extensive history of painting, reexamining the triadic relationship between the artist, the artwork, and the viewer from the perspectives of neuroscience and philosophy, contemplating a novel mode of existence within the realm of painting.　
  Recent research has revealed that approximately 80-90% of the information processed by the brain is visual. Additionally, it has been studied in psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience that humans can never perceive the same world structurally. These findings suggest that we always perceive the world individually and subjectively. In the context of art, Hagino interprets this as the viewer using subjectivity as a tool to deconstruct the painting. All elements that make up the deconstructed painting are then reconstructed in the viewer's brain.

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    Throughout the long history of painting, many artists have faced the challenge of "how to express the three-dimensional world perceived by humans on a two-dimensional surface." In the process where the artist creates the work and the viewer appreciates it, there are two instances of "subjectivity." The first occurs when the artist perceives the world and expresses it in two dimensions. The second occurs when the viewer perceives the work. Thus, during this process of "compression and decompression," the work undergoes two changes due to subjective recognition, influenced by the "subjective recognition" of both the artist and the viewer. As philosopher Kant stated, humans process the perceived world through subjective filters such as knowledge, experience, emotions, and memories, which significantly impact subjective recognition.
 

     In Hagino's research works, spatial expressions stemming from the "subjective world" perceived and reconstructed in the brain are depicted. This distinctive technique, which Hagino calls "multilayered perspective," involves applying semi-transparent materials like wax and silicone on the canvas to create multiple layers. By intricately overlapping the relationships of motifs in each layer, he complicates the depth of the canvas and expresses time axis discrepancies and perception gaps.

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     Hagino's works, dissected into multiple layers and reconstructed, extract pure perceptual information (elements constituting the world) before being reconstructed in the brain. These works serve as "devices" that allow viewers to reconstruct them more freely and subjectively in their minds, utilizing the two instances of subjective recognition that occur inherently between the artist and the viewer. In this sense, Hagino's spatial expressions, which draw and utilize the internal structures of humans, stand in stark contrast to the world spatial expressions devoid of human intervention as seen in Cubism.

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     The title of Hagino's main series, "It dwells within," originates from this inherent dual process of compression and decompression between the artist and the viewer, embodying the triadic structure of artist-work-viewer and the very essence of painting.

Mixed media with beeswax on canvas panel