RIE's Artist Statement

Sabi is the Japanese word for rust and is rooted in the word, sabireru, which means, “to become desolate”. Becoming desolate is not a negative principle as one would suppose, but connotes the sense of natural aging, of stripping away the unnecessary to the essential. This seeming paradox is a curious aesthetic ideal that influences my work because of my Japanese-American upbringing. The Japanese aesthetic ideals of suggestion, irregularity, simplicity, and perishability are the underlying principles that guide my painting and drawing. These four basic principles guide my efforts to explore the link between art and nature that ebbs and flows much like nature itself wanes, dies, then rejuvenates to live anew.

The integration of Japanese aesthetics into my art making is an expression of dealing with the dualities of my identities. The tension of being neither Japanese nor American and yet being both is symbolized in my artwork by the ambiguities in space of the image. The images are tentatively floating in space creating an anti-gravitational buoyancy for the viewer. The compression of space evokes a sense of not knowing whether the image is receding or advancing. This feeling is a good analogy of wavering I have felt and continue to feel. It is an unsettling feeling of never feeling a part of your environment. Through my expressions of art, I am trying to assuage the anxiety felt in the hyphenated zones of my identities. By using my specific situation, I am trying to reach the universal anxiety felt by everyone at one time or another of being an exile. To quote Trinh T. Min-ha from her book, When the Moon Waxes Red, “Violations of boundaries have always led to displacement, for the in-between zones are the shifting grounds on which the (doubly) exiled walk.”

My recent work deals with the Zen idea of being one with that which you are creating artwork. Part of finding the essential in nature is becoming one with its cycles, its characteristics, its similarities, and its differences. Just as physicists are looking for the unified string theory to tie it all together, I am looking for the common thread between us. To co-exist within nature we must realize that we are part of it; that we are one with it.

In using the Japanese aesthetic ideals, I am trying not to replicate Japanese art but rather create a hybrid within the melding of my identities. In doing so, it is a gentle reminder that I am indeed a participant of my environment.