In the recent Sci-fi movie "Arrival" landed on Earth aliens communicate by releasing from their tentacles ink-like circles with extremely sophisticated structure. The circles while outlining emptiness, are organised as complex non-linear messages similar to sentences which are being written simultaneously from the beginning and the end. The film describes the attempt of humans to decode these messages, that demand synchronicity based perception, and to understand the purpose of aliens’ arrival.
Nevertheless.... it is not only aliens in the movie who propose us this mode of thinking. Japanese language for instance in which the subject is often omitted but presupposed in the beginning, while the most infused with meaning part - a verb - will by the rule come in the end of the sentence has a lot in common with the proposed structure. After I finish writing this centence I will translate it in Japanese: I will mark the subject, than will define and will keep in mind the verb which will close the centence and then will run to the center simultanisously from the beginning and the end thus locking the message for our Japanese readers. The reader on his/her side will collect it by grasping it from the end, eventually packing it up within opposite derections. In a way, Japanese language speakers exchange signifying rings, while the circle as well as wrapping are the fundamental figure-practises in this culture.
Art Work possess similar structure and this is one of the possible ways to approach and try to apprehend the recent paintings by Haruki Ogawa. Combining canvases made of different media (hemp, linen, cotton), applying shadowing effects and depicting (by oil, acrylic, alkyd) dynamic elements that transfix the multiple planes Ogawa weaves a figure that can't be read through linear, diachronic structure. His image doesn't offer you one entrance. The painting is a knot-like organization which can be perceived only in the mode of synchronicity, while enveloping the totality of the visual semiotic organism and coming simultaneously from different directions to its ungraspable, "empty" centre. On Friday, December 16 Frantic Gallery will present these Borromean Rings-like works by Haruki Ogawa and invite you to wrap it up by your mind using more than one tentacles of your perception at a time.
Fusion IV, acrylic on cotton canvas, 98x110x6cm, 2016
by:
by:
In the work titled "Mukashi Banashi" Ogawa creates a narrative ring synthesizing 4 tales from Japanese folklore: Urashima Taro, Hare of Inaba, Kachi-kachi-yama, Roly-Poly Rice Balls. Two dimensional plane of the painting presents complex space with interplay of the scales, juxtaposed points of views and the overlapping of the depicted stories. "Mukashi Banashi" overcomes the linear structure of narration and synthesize in one infinite circle the visual continuum of the story while generating the non-existing place for the "reader".
