MARUYAMA Rina (Japan)

Painting

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Oeuvre 39

Oeuvre 40

Oeuvre 42

Oeuvre 41

Oeuvre 43

I was born in 1978 in Yukuhashi, a small provincial town on Kyusyu Island in Japan. In this town, there was no cultural or economic stimulation. It was almost amorphous for everything. Within this universe, I spent a childhood that was itself amorphous. I was a girl who was neither pretty nor ugly, neither bright nor bad in class. My family was neither rich nor poor, in short, everything around me was banal. Especially in class, I felt non-existent. At home, the same. I was a rather easy child, so my parents didn't care much about me. That's why, sometimes, I wanted to shout to all those people, "Look at me, I exist".I wanted to appear in this world but I didn't know how to express it. I started to dance and sing in secret, dreaming of becoming someone. In vain because I always felt good for nothing. The only occupation to fill my desperate heart was drawing. I drew manga characters in my notebooks every day during class. However, no one noticed what I was doing...for them, my drawings as well as my person did not exist.In spite of my unhappiness, I finished my studies as a dietician and entered the working world. I had the responsibility of managing a team of ladies much older than me. With them, I peeled vegetables and grilled fish daily for over 10 years. I was quite happy with this situation, but regularly I wondered if this was really my life. Would it end like this with those ladies peeling vegetables?And one day when I was 32, really by chance, I signed up for an oil painting course that I had never done before. The teacher was a very old master who taught really classical painting techniques, almost old-fashioned, like 19th century. I felt very comfortable with him, I was blossoming throughout my learning. I began to dream of doing portraits like he did. One day I found an old photo of my grandfather when he was in the army during the second world war.In this photo, there were 18 young soldiers who looked no more than 20 years old. Instinctively, I wanted to paint their portraits individually. I invested myself with passion in this experience. Through this personal exercise, I finally felt I existed. As if by chance (again!), the year 2015 was the 70th anniversary of the commemoration of the end of the '45 war, an association of veterans proposed to me to exhibit them, first locally and then throughout Japan.My works were broadcasted in the media. I was congratulated, interviewed, considered for the first time in my life. I realized that this was how I wanted to exist. Like a hurricane, I had to concentrate totally on my art. I had to escape this world, escape my past to be reborn (re-born).Spontaneously, my attention turned to the city of Paris and the Louvre Museum. In October 2016, I moved there and asked the Louvre for permission to copy paintings. I felt so good, surrounded by masterpieces of an era and artists that were no more, while outside, the contemporary art paintings presented in the art galleries did not fit me. This was not the way I wanted to express myself and position myself. However, I still didn't know what I wanted to paint.One day I started measuring my body, my arms, legs and feet. I even shaved my head to measure it (like Demi Moore in "Equal Weapons"). I faithfully reproduced them on canvases almost 2 m high in my small 18? studio. This was the proof of my existence and inspired the name of my first exhibition in September 2018 "I am Japanese" which included 25 paintings. As part of a Performance, I paraded them through the streets of Paris by having friends carry them. People were looking at my works, talking to me, I was happy, finally, I existed. I had more than 200 visitors during my exhibition, including art critics such as Christian Noobergen.Based on this success, I started to create a new series of large-format paintings which is currently being completed.

Since the day I left Japan, I have felt more Japanese than ever. And this stay in France made me think about what is "self-expression" in painting, which is my creative medium.

Rina Maruyama

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