Misuzu Oyama: Drawing Like Writing Sentences

2023/07/07

Since I was a child, I have often asked people questions. Sometimes I feel like I understand the answer, and sometimes I feel like I don't.

When I draw, I also move forward by repeating questions and answers to myself.

As I keep asking "Why?", the "Whys" increase for every word that makes up a sentence. This is because the range of meaning for words varies depending on the person using them and the situation, leading to overlaps. The more I ask, the more things I don't understand appear within the answers; I can never fully grasp everything myself. Lately, I feel like I am drawing as if searching for a shape for myself from the areas blurred by those overlaps.

It is a process like calming the loud sound of spilled water and returning it to myself.

In conversation, words move in one direction. In written text, one is free from the time axis to some extent, but I still feel that the direction of progression is fixed.

"Since I was a child, I have often asked people questions." This is a "previously written sentence."

In writing, the same word in different positions becomes something else. In drawing, even if I follow associations while ignoring the direction of progression, I can arrange them almost simultaneously, and I can place things in offset positions as if they were connected. There are different kinds of blur in sentences and drawings, and I feel a sense of familiarity with both. Or rather, I feel as if my own room exists there.

There are infinite gaps where one can ask "Why?", and every time the question changes, the world I see changes.

I am sometimes asked where I start when I draw. In my case, I first write something like a simple story outline in words, and then I proceed by arranging that content along with branching side stories.

Therefore, when I tried to write about drawing, I ended up writing about sentences, and by repeating "Why?" to myself, this text was created.