| At the very core of my work is my interest in and passion for the visual culture of Japan. I often look through books and websites related to this traditional visual culture, and when I come across images that intrigue and inspire me, I try to learn as much as possible about them—the artists who created them and the technical and art historical genre to which they belong. |  |
Asuka Ohsawa’s exhibition, Spring Love, was on view at Horton and Co. April 2-May 2, 2009.
At the very core of my work is my interest in and passion for the visual culture of Japan. I often look through books and websites related to this traditional visual culture, and when I come across images that intrigue and inspire me, I try to learn as much as possible about them—the artists who created them and the technical and art historical genre to which they belong. The ideas for my own images are often formed during this research process, although sometimes my project begins with a set of particular issues that I want to address in my work, and I look for specific visual references that I can appropriate and incorporate into my own images. I am not interested in faithfully reproducing the aesthetics of the past tradition; rather, I am interested in using the images from the past as the visual and conceptual foundation upon which I can build my own artistic language.
Since 2007 or so (about the time that I began to work on the XX series), I have been interested in revisiting and exploring some of the social conventions and expectations imposed upon us women from early childhood all the way through to adulthood. As I mention in my interview with Federico Sarica, this investigation was triggered in part by my interactions with my niece, who wholeheartedly embraces all things girly (dresses, lipsticks, long hair, etc.) and relentlessly questions my status as a single, independent, working woman (as opposed to a married woman with children, which, in her opinion, is what I should be at my age). After completing the XX series, I decided to revisit some of the best-known classic fairy tales and learn about their psychological impact upon the lives of young girls. I was particularly drawn to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, and I planned to build a whole body of works based on my own homespun tale about her (which was about the life after her unfortunate encounter with the wolf). Unfortunately, shortly after completing a group of drawings that I showed in Italy, I realized that it was virtually impossible for me to communicate such definitive and elaborate stories without the aid of written text. So I made an attempt to illustrate the story in the form of a picture book and graphic novel, but I wasn’t happy with the results, and in the end I abandoned the project altogether.
Meanwhile, my infatuation with Little Red Riding Hood continued. I was especially fascinated by the tale’s remarkable ability to adapt to shifts in time, culture, and environment, spawning a multitude of reincarnations in every generation. I was also intrigued by the fact that, in whatever the disguise she’s taken over the centuries, a whiff of sexuality always hangs thick around her and her stories, and I decided to work with the idea that Little Red Riding Hood is a tale of mutual seduction, of a girl’s sexual awakening. Earlier in my Spring Love series (2008), I kept the reference to the story by keeping a red cape on my protagonist’s body, but eventually I realized that such reference wasn’t necessary within the context of the overall theme. So I got rid of the cape, but I kept red and its variant pink as the colors of choice for my protagonist’s outfit.
Making references to shunga, or Japanese erotic prints, seemed quite straightforward and appropriate for the theme that I was working with. In addition to the thematic connection, the aesthetics of shunga, with its lavish colors, excessive patterning, playful distortion of human bodies, and close-up views, provided me with the opportunity to play with formal elements and overall compositions. Unlike the traditional shunga images, however, my images focus on the seduction and allusion to sex rather than the graphic depiction of the act of sexual intercourse. My intention was to keep the sweet innocence of a young girl’s sexual awakening, and in this context I found it unnecessary to include the fleshy depictions of penis and vagina. Moreover, I wasn’t interested in working with male characters in my work [in XX], and that aspect has not changed even now. My primary concern for the Spring Love series was to talk about the experience of a young girl, and I found that, as long as there was a suggestion of the presence of a boy as target of my protagonist’s desire, it was enough to convey what I wanted to convey.
