STAND! STRONG! STRAIGHT! (Dawn)

FRP, oil, oil base paint, acrylic

This is a teddy bear sculpture.

This work was based on my original teddy bear, which was created over a five-year period from 2018-2023.

The flowers fall, the curtain closes and light of youth fades away, but experiences and memories are always there, beyond time and space, presented in the culture and motifs of the work's background.

I am of the Lost Generation. My exposure to the afterglow of the bubble economy and the glitz of MTV during my impressionable years led me to study the relationship between Pop Art, Japan and the US, and the expanding concept of sculpture, as my view of art is Pop Art.

This is why I use plastic, a material that represents mass consumption and mass production, as the main material for my engravings. I loved the kitschy lightness of plastic, no matter how serious the subject matter, but I also found it to be a material that t reflected my teenage years and the process of my decade as a sculptor.

I always start by exploring materials that fit the image of the artwork, and now that I am experimenting with other new materials, this piece has become my signature artwork with plastic.

The title of this artwork echoes the atmosphere of the times following the coronavirus pandemic as a dawn landscape and quotes the title of song by artist who were revolutionary.

Existence gap.

They look soft, but are cold and hard to the touch. Behind the apparent loveliness lies a sharp counterculture.

Sight and touch, reality and imagination may differ, but both are correct.

The lightness of the modern plastic material is contrasted with the heaviness of the classic oil paint, so that the warmth and fluffiness of the teddy bear and the gloss and texture of the leather jacket are expressed as a single mass.

Fluffy shapes and shiny colours, This coloring expresses dawn.

I make a teddy bear out of fluffy fake fur, then dress it with a jacket made from clay to create a prototype, mould it in silicone, mould it in FRP and color it. The original mould is no longer available due to the creation of the mould, and the mould has been damaged due to deterioration caused by the creation process, so there are now only two pieces in different colors. There is a hole on the back of the work to hang it on the wall.