Unveiling the Stories that Shape My Art
I am thrilled to embark on this literary journey with you, sharing the stories that have profoundly shaped my creative path. These tales...
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BIO
Moeko MACHIDA is an Aichi (Japan)-born artist who creates paintings under the prominent theme: the nature of life. Placing herself amid all phenomena surrounding lives, she carefully observes and perceives phenomena, thus meticulously putting them into images.
Raised by biologist parents, she has been familiar with matters surrounding vitality and has had a strong perception of emotions since an early age. Consequently, she had gotten overwhelmed by the spirits of the dead and the invisible existences surrounding her. It was her expressionist self that found a way to face those presences that she could not detach herself from.
The ideas she nurtured in studying Japanese painting and Butoh dance also have influences on her artistry. While studying at the Kyoto City University of Arts, she learned the Japanese painting method that places emphasis on sketching, through which she acquired an attitude of taking time to face the subject matter with serenity. She also started dancing in her childhood and studied Butoh eagerly during college, which led her to apply the Butoh-derived idea of the body as being amid phenomena surrounding lives to her work.
The pebble-like round aggregates that frequently appear in her paintings mirror how something in life exists and evolves, representing not only the living but also the dead.
Her ultimate goal in creation is to be aware of the ways our senses and perceptions are, and thus share them with others through her work.
She has participated in exhibitions in Japan, Europe, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and has also been commissioned to create sliding screen paintings for traditional Japanese houses as well as to exhibit her work in hotels. In the spring of 2025, she will begin a new creative journey based in Basel, Switzerland.
Statement
I create paintings inspired by a fundamental question: What is the essence of life’s unseen beauty?
In my artistic practice, natural motifs such as mountains, stones, and the moon are not mere reproductions of external forms. Rather than simply depicting external forms, I approach natural motifs—such as mountains, stones, and the moon—through the East Asian concept of mitate, a poetic method of metaphorical transformation. In this way, these motifs are not fixed in meaning, but instead suggest symbolic resonances with themes such as life, death, and time, while retaining an intentional openness that invites reflection.
The act of translating them into painting is not an impulsive emotional outpouring, but a process of careful observation—one that reveals the latent connections between nature and my body, memory, and emotion. The resulting works form spaces of abstraction that evoke individual sensations, memories, and personal narratives in each viewer.
My practice resonates with East Asian painting philosophy, particularly the concept of 気韻生動 (Qi Yun Sheng Dong)—bringing the breath or rhythm of life onto the surface of the painting. The layered mineral pigments, the textures of the matière, and the rhythms found in tonal variations of the paint are all intimately linked to the subtle movements of my breath, body, and spirit. These elements function as poetic devices, endowing the work with spiritual depth that can physically and emotionally resonate with the viewer.
Through this inquiry into the essence of life’s unseen beauty, my work moves fluidly between abstraction and figuration. By presenting narrative abstraction grounded in East Asian sensibilities, I aim to metaphysically reconstruct the broader framework of the human relationship with nature.
私は、「生命の輝きの本質とは何か」という根源的な問いを出発点に、絵画を制作しています。
私の絵画的実践において、山、石、月といった自然の風景やモチーフは、単なる外形的再現を超えて、東洋的な「見立て」の手法のもとに、それぞれの意味に余白を残しながら、「生」「死」「時間」といったテーマを象徴的に伝える役割を担っています。それを絵画化する行為は、即興的な感情の発露ではなく、自然と私自身の身体・記憶・情動とのあいだにある潜在的なつながりを丁寧に洞察するプロセスによって成立します。そうして生まれる作品は、観る人それぞれの感覚や記憶、物語を呼び起こす抽象性を備えた空間を探究しています。
また、私の制作は東アジアの絵画思想、特に「気韻生動」――すなわち、生命の気配を画面上に呼び込むこと――との共鳴の中にあります。岩絵具の重なりやマチエールの質感、絵具の濃淡に現れるリズムは、私自身の呼吸や身体、精神の微細な動きと連動しており、観者の身体や情動に共振する詩的装置として、作品に精神的な深度をもたらします。
このような「生命の輝きの本質」を探究する実践を通じて、抽象と具象のあわいに揺れ動きながら、人間と自然との関係というマクロな枠組みを、形而上的に再構築することを目指しています。
『私が石ころを描き続ける理由』については以下に詳しくまとめております。
ぜひご覧くださいませ。
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