Aoki Satoko: Beast within Emotions - Hashiru -

Persona Series 2023 Mixed Media Acrylic paints, pigments, resin, canvas F10 H530×W455×D64mm [Artwork Description] This piece depicts a beast with a white body and a black head dashing diagonally across a background that gradients from greenish-blue to pink. Numerous lines and paint splatters, like splashes, trail behind the beast's back, as if the act of running itself is visualized as a trace. A small golden sphere is added to its nose, providing a light accent to the running beast's movement. Titled "Persona Series," this series explores the rapidly shifting emotions people experience daily, and the inexplicable emotions that lie hidden beneath them. The "beast" depicted in this work is an anthropomorphic (or zoomorphic) representation of these inexpressible emotions, embodying an irreducible duality within its simple color scheme of a black head and a white body. As indicated by the title "Hashiru" (meaning "to run"), this beast is not static but depicted as a constantly moving entity. Emotions, too, do not remain in a fixed form but are in constant flux. This fluidity is expressed through the gradient of colors in the background and the energy of the lines and splatters trailing behind the beast. [Artist's Comment] A work based on the concept of persona. People experience various emotions that change and flow daily. Beneath these, there are also inexplicable emotions lurking. Is the beast an enemy or an ally to me? The interpretation changes depending on the emotion at the time.