Sorry for Not Being More Serious

I'd like to apologize for how I have conducted myself until now: I'm sorry for not being more serious.

I have said many things about politics — matters I could do nothing about on my own. However hard you try to fix politics, it is not something one person can change. Pouring so much of my life into it meant neglecting the thing I should really be doing: my work as a painter.

As a result — though I doubt many people will read this, and perhaps few truly love my work — I have not been able to offer much value to those who might.

I still think Japan has serious political problems, starting with the Ministry of Finance's austerity. But I keenly felt my own powerlessness to do anything about them as an individual.

If the world is this irrational, perhaps the right way to live is to change how I look at it, focus on what I can do, and walk my own life one step at a time, at my own pace.

As for future solo exhibitions, rather than paying 400,000 yen to rent a gallery in Ginza, I would like to borrow venues in the countryside that are cheap or free, show my work within my means, and carry on with it as my life's work at my own pace.

I intend to keep things simple, not push myself or overthink, and express myself honestly, as I am now — gradually widening the places where I can be active.

On Making Work

I fully intend to keep making work, in a relaxed, unhurried way. I think I am suited not so much to doing one thing continuously, but to rotating through various things and keeping them all going over the long run. So I will keep painting as the mood takes me — I am not giving up painting.

February 9, 2023 — sandragon965

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