Uni Aoi Artist Statement

Painter Uni Aoi

(Ⅰ） Preface

In her works such as "Men-Heler Exhibition (2014-2017)," "Oppai Painting (2018-)," "I Don't Want to Be an Idol (2021)," and "DIY Matching App (2023)," the artist I, Aoi Uni, consistently uses a method of expression that paradoxically poses ironic questions by acting as a clown. The core of this method of expression is improvisation. At the core of this is improvisational abstract painting.

There is a reason why I have not abandoned pure abstraction in my pursuit of ironic and poisonous expressions that are strongly concerned with the subject matter at hand. This is because I want to reflect and satirize the state of the Japanese art world, in which both "just pretty pictures with an emphasis on visuals" and "high-context conceptual art" coexist in one artist's work.

（Ⅱ）Background

I was raised as a second-generation member of the Unification Church, formerly known as the Unification Church of World Peace and Unification. As is well known, the Unification Church has a strict belief in sexuality.

After the repression of childhood education, they gain spiritual independence. Instead, they became more interested in the liberated sexuality and became more conscious of it in their expressive activities.

I was attracted not only to sexual desire, but also to the desire for death.

A psychiatrist diagnosed me as having a developmental disorder (ADHD) from birth; I also showed signs of borderline personality disorder from around the age of 14 or 15, and has been visiting the hospital and suffering from drug addiction (prescription drug dependence) since around the age of 21.

I has been in and out of psychiatric wards from my early 20s to my 30s.

These characteristics apply to "Men-Heler". I am a self-identified "Men-Heler" and have organized an exhibition called "Men-Heler Exhibition" with the purpose of expressing my discomfort with internal revelations in art and the art of people with disabilities.

I has masochistic sexuality and a strong desire for destruction, and I like so-called "depressive HENTAI Game" (computer games for adults with depressing settings), and often draws motifs from these games. This is probably due to the education I received in the Unification Church.

Although I officially left the Unification Church when I was 25 years old, it was during my adolescent years that I inwardly distanced myself from the Unification Church. On that day, I needed a new "faith". That was "painting" or "art" for me.

For the first time in my early twenties, I attempted suicide. Just before that, I thought to myself, "I can never die until I succeed. I was able to stay alive by deciding, "I will do art and survive in the midst of hell.

For me, quitting painting and art is tantamount to depravity, defeat, and death. I have lived my life with art as my identity above all else. And I will continue to do so.

(Ⅲ)Visuals, Techniques

A sense of discomfort grows when I am describing something realistic. Are these five senses really correct? I, who have innate characteristics of phantom touch, auditory hallucination, and vision, cannot believe it.

Since I cannot believe in the five senses. In order to faithfully reproduce and reenact the world as I feel it, I thought it would be The best to adopt an expressionist approach.
My works are mainly painted with acrylic paint on paper or canvas. Because I often paint quickly and instantaneously, quick-drying materials are a good fit. Most of my paintings are done with a brush, but I also use my fingers and body.

For me, painting is a dialogue with paint, and by directly touching my fingertips to the paint, I feel a deep connection with the work. The act of touching the paint with my hands can be said to be a ritual that interweaves phantasmagoric touch. There is a desire to touch and confirm.

I paint in order to pursue pleasure for me.
My brush strokes are dynamic, and I try to find beauty in the unevenness of the paint, the blotting, the mixing of paints, and the natural matiere and sense of resistance. I emphasize the traces of handwork and physicality. I create works that have a sense of complexity and coarseness in the amount of information in the color gradations and the touch.

I do not use any esquisse or rough drafts, but draws according to the image I have in mind. Even if the image changes as I paint, and something different from my imagination is created, I value the process and the result, and enjoys the fun and improvisation of not knowing what I will create.　

I often see soft curves like waves in my motifs. They are the mountains and the sea  I saw in my parents' home, Ibaraki. They are probably the original landscapes where I was born and raised. The smoothness of the curves sometimes gives me a sexual impression.

(Ⅳ) Concept, art historical positioning

Clement Greenberg (1909-1994) clearly viewed the semi-figurative works of Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) as abstract. This is because the emphasis is on brushing rather than form. In other words, many of my paintings can also be considered "abstract.

For example, "Shinzo Abe Drinking Mekkol (2022)" certainly depicts a concrete motif, former Prime Minister Abe. However, the highlights of this painting are the bold composition with blank spaces, the skillful brushwork, the rough brushstrokes and unevenness of the paint, the sensitivity that is revealed after the paint has been tinkered with, and the red coloring that can be glimpsed even in the overall blue color scheme. Thus, the fact that Shinzo Abe is drinking Mekkol is not a major issue. A painting is not so much about what is depicted as how it is depicted. This work can also be defined as an abstract painting, painted from an abstract viewpoint.

Underlying my body of work is a tradition of abstract expressionism called "neo-abstract painting. I have inherited the improvisation and action of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), the abstract balance and rough brushwork of de Kooning, and I am creating works to innovate.

I have been creating works that is innovative, for even paintings that are said to have come to an end still have the potential for extended expression.

My "Natural Object Series (2021)" blurs the boundary between three-dimensional objects and paintings by intentionally showing wooden frames and loosely stretching canvases, and my "Acrylic on Photo Series (2020)" blurs the boundary between reality (painting) and non-reality (photography). I continue to experiment with new approaches.

In pursuit of the possibilities of painting, I formed an art collective and incorporated performance elements such as live painting set to music and fieldwork.

Contemporary art increasingly demands social practice that emphasizes social relations. In order to respond to this change and to explore what is possible and what is impossible in painting, I have been working both as a collective and as a painter.

Also, as a Japanese, I have inherited the Japanese spirit of "ma," "kawaii," and "asymmetry aesthetics. The reason why my paintings have bold milky white margins even though they are Western paintings is because I am conscious of "ma," and the reason why I use HENTAI Game and manga characters as motifs is because I have inherited the Japanese "kawaii" culture.

(Ⅴ) Afterword

My current goal is to pursue the mystique of painting, which has not yet been illuminated by currently accepted art historical values, while taking over the context of art history, and to prove the myth that "painting is, after all, a visual world.