Ever since we are born, at home, we are spending lots of time with people with similar faces as our own like parents, brothers, sisters, and relatives. That's why I think that a face that I recognise, and the feature of that face, is infinitely similar to myself. For example, in some cases, we think the face of pet dog resembles its owner’s, or the faces of a married couple resemble each other. I think it is a phenomenon that the feature of a face you recognize looks like your face, and you subconsciously choose the one with the same face or a similar one.
The portraits that I create in my artwork look like me because, in a subconscious manner, I select that person, I don’t imagine a specific person. I call it a self-portrait. And whether it's a figure of a man or a woman, I call it a self-portrait regardless of gender.
I got married about a year ago and started living as a married couple. I accept a person who is different from me, and every piece of my artwork is about what I can see and think from the smallest society of two people.
Before the COVID-19, my approach to art making had been influenced by the outside world -via the inspirations and influences from various people. The spread of COVID-19 has dramatically restricted the sphere of my daily life – my wife, my pet and plants in my garden.
Given such situation, I created my artworks for this exhibition by cherishing little changes that I noticed during the process of digesting my inner mind and recalling memories with my wife and family from the past.