| I make art to express myself. All the creations I have made are based on my experiences, thoughts and memories. English isn’t my first language and moving to the United States when I was eleven was the toughest part of my life. I didn’t know the language and I also didn’t know anyone. Not being able to communicate well with others made me feel crazy inside, so I began to draw. Drawing was the place for my thoughts and feelings that I could n’t express in words. Drawing represented me as stronger than I appeared and showed also that I did in fact exist. At the same time, I believe that contemplating how I exist is an important part of my life. |  |
Fumi Nakamura
I make art to express myself. All the creations I have made are based on my experiences, thoughts and memories. English isn’t my first language and moving to the United States when I was eleven was the toughest part of my life. I didn’t know the language and I also didn’t know anyone. Not being able to communicate well with others made me feel crazy inside, so I began to draw. Drawing was the place for my thoughts and feelings that I could n’t express in words. Drawing represented me as stronger than I appeared and showed also that I did in fact exist.
At the same time, I believe that contemplating how I exist is an important part of my life. It may seem like a self-concentrated approach to art, but I believe that since everyone exists, everyone has similar connections with others that are universal and relatable. Not everyone lives in the same way that everyone else does and so we cannot always connect with every single element of each other, but we are people, we have feelings and we think. For example, we would feel sad when we lose something important or when we love something. We share similar feelings about certain things. My aspiration is to communicate through my art this inherent connection with others. I would similarly want other people to think, feel and express themselves in the same way that I get to in this process.
In my art, I mainly use pencils because I can control the line work much better than with pen, paint and other materials that I once used. I feel a lot more comfortable with pencil and thus can manage detailed work much faster. I can do similarly well with pen, but it doesn’t come out as the result I would like.
Before I start working, I usually stare at the paper for a while and ponder what is on my mind. I try to communicate with myself what I am thinking and feeling strongly about right then and there. When the subject matter is chosen, I begin a piece by laying down light lines on the paper’s surface. I work bit by bit, trying to discover which line and shade is perfect. I rotate the paper every once in a while in order to fill the surface area up. For inspiration, I often use a big collection of random photos that I have collected. From those photographs, I imagine how people felt at the moment that they were taken, considering their situations or creating entirely new ones for them by using the images and making them into different narratives.
I took art classes in high school, went to art colleges and took summer courses. I currently study illustration at my university to practice my skills, but still feel like I haven’t gained all that much. Instead, I feel like I learned more about how to use the materials and tools themselves. I studied techniques from books and by observing the work of other artists. Seeing their work was another inspiration for my drawings. Considering how other artists used their colors, lines, brush strokes and how they established their particular style ultimately taought me how to draw and develop my art.
My current project is called “Natural Behavior,” which is based on the connection between all the elements within nature. I grew up in a place surrounded by forest and ocean. As I got older, the natural environment seemed, increasingly, to have diminished. Today, there are more houses, concrete roads and cars on the streets than there are trees and flowers in our environment. People seem to be less interested in nature than they used to be. They are apparently lured by city life and all of its technologies. However, I do not believe everyone is like that.
Because of this, I decided to show how nature will be a part of us always. I am attempting to explore myself and the life I am living right now, so I that I can create more drawings with a diverse range of meanings. And, eventually when people see my work, I would like them to connect with the art and be able fully to express how they feel about it. I want my art to exist primarily as a complex form of communication with others.
