ＣＺＴ's page－Masako Ando

Masako Ando was born in 1976 and is a currently active painter. Some may say that her style resembles Antonio Lopez in Spain realism.　She makes only pencil drawings or oil paintings. The motif of her paintings are living creatures such as children, animals, insects, and flowers. She depicts this phenomenon with precision by observing such motifs finely every corner. She carefully draws these motifs with the same level of concentration. Therefore, when we see her work, we find it difficult to grasp all the pieces. In her work, all existence is equivalent.

In pencil drawing, she pays hard labor to pull each line and fix it on the screen. In oil painting, she puts the paint on the canvas, strikes thinly with a brush or palm, stretches it, repeats polishing with sandpaper. As a result, she finishes the canvas like a porcelain to a smooth surface. The texture of the motif that she expresses with outstanding descriptive power will have an amazing reality. Besides, she polishes the surface of the screen, erasing brush strokes and substance feeling of the paint. When we look at her paintings, we not only are surprised by realistic depictions but also feel fictionality that does not have a presence as a substance. We wander to fumble between reality and fiction.

"The Fire" is a pencil drawing. The title of this pencil drawing was taken from a fairy tale by Kenji Miyazawa. But the motif she is drawing is not directly related to fairy tales. She draws children here, so I think that the image of the fairy tale reflects indirectly. But I will be fascinated by the drawing drawn by her, taking aside the image of such title. In this drawing, I am surprised at how to draw each one of the fur of a hat that a child is suffering. And I mistakenly felt that the soft texture of that hair was tactile. By the way, let's talk about the plot of the fairy tale of Kenji Miyazawa.

One day the Homoi of the rabbit child helps the child of the lark drowning in the river, and as a thankful thanks to him the parent of the lark will be handed the "Kainohi" called "the gift from our king". According to Homoi's father, this "Kainohi" is a treasure that there are only two people in birds and one in fish so far who have passed through for the rest of my life, my father takes care of homoeys and does not lose the light I will admonish you.

The next day, the homoei who went outside gets puzzled as it gets a great respect from the animals we met. Homoi's mother told that it was because homoei became splendid. Homoi, who became happy to know that he became a "great ", will begin to order various animals around him from the next day.

Meanwhile, by chance I saw that a fox who had been meaningful to himself up to himself lowered his head to himself, Homoi made him his own family, but the fox soon began to take it into homoei, and Haimoi himself I gradually become proud of it. The father who saw the appearance of such a homoea advises "Be careful of fox", but still the homoei is likely to get on the word of the fox at times.

When the attitude of the fox gradually became honorable, when the homoea was threatened by the fox and participated in the wrong, "Kainohi" began to turn muddy, until the fire in the gem disappears at last. Homoi and his father stop the fox 's plot, but "Kainohi" broke, and Homoy became blind. My father said such a homoei "There is such a thing anywhere, you are most fortunate, you are fortunate, my eyes will surely improve again because my dad will do it well."

She produced a "The Garden of Belly Buttom" in both pencil drawings and oil paintings. First, let's see a pencil drawing. It is a simple motif that an infant who puts out a navel in the field stands. I was fascinated by the pencil drawing. Every one of the extremely fine lines that she draws with a pencil is delicate. She sometimes entangled its delicate lines, sometimes aligned, sometimes shading gently. I can see various images like fantasy, dynamic, meditative and lyrical by looking at the drawn line. In particular, these effects are expressed intensively in depictions of hair disturbed by combs and combs of infants. The hair of an infant is carefully drawn one by one hair that the soft, thin hair inherent in an infant is disturbed by a cloth with curly hair. It is fine and relentless anyway. I marveled at tremendousness, imagining how much labor and time she spent drawing this. Actually, she draws one drawing line, repeats applying various treatments such as scraping with sand paper. In other words, it's not just drawing lines. She is inclining her soul to a single line. But we casually look at the line, I do not notice that. The entire drawing is a natural body, traces of power are not noticeable. What is common to children, plants, birds and small animals she uses as a motif is a soft fabric. Those motifs are best suited to make use of the textured, precise lines drawn by her.

Besides, this pencil drawing is composed of delicate lines minutely drawn, and elements other than the drawing of a softly drawn child appear in front of us. I feel eerie when I gaze at the drawing. For example, an infant's eyes. The infant's eyes are empty. She draws the eyes of an infant relentlessly and finely up to the glow. However, the more she draws it, the more white spots become prominent to say white eyes. I can not feel the vivid life feeling in the eyes of this infant. It makes me feel like I'm watching the anatomical specimen of my eyes. Also, the pose of an infant is adorable, but I can not feel the movement of the infant drawn. The figure depicted by this young child seems to be something like an insect specimen whose pose is fixed. So, it should be a lovely, warm hearted motif, but the impression of seeing the figure drawn is cold and eerie.

Furthermore, let's move our line of sight to the periphery. Various flowers are drawn at the foot of an infant. Some of these flowers are eaten by insects, some are stolen by aphids, some are withered, it is not only pretty, never celebrating. She expresses the beautiful and bad appearance of the flower equivalently at the foot of an infant. Here, her gaze is looking at both sides of the beauty and frankness of flowers at the same time. I think this is the case for the entire drawing. The infant's eyes are empty, even for young children full of life feeling soon after they were born, she will see the shadow of death. And when she draws an infant, she expresses its neighboring sides.

Therefore, I am concerned about the instability which lacks balance somewhere that the existence of the line which first mentioned as the feature of the work concerning this drawing is excessive, on the other hand there is emptiness as a whole I feel impressive.

Next let's see oil paintings. As I said at the beginning, her oil painting features are a smooth surface finish like a pottery. She is having a lot of hardships to create this slipperiness. First, she stretches the canvas to the panel. Next, she paints the ground on the canvas with gray based on Foundation White. And she drys the painted base every layer and if the eye gets buried until the cloth of the campus can not be seen, dry it thoroughly and polish it with sandpaper. This completes the substrate. I think that it takes considerable labor even with this process alone. She traces the picture of the pencil drawing on this finished canvas and draws it down. From here on, the oil painting is real. She paints the underlying picture. She puts the color on the underlying picture and pounds thinly with a brush or palm on the screen that the transparent color called glaze was melted in Linseedo Oil in order to produce a sense of transparency. This is like putting a thin cellophane on the picture. She sticks the opaque gray on it before it is dried enough, holds it down, polishes it with sandpaper, and layers are overlapped so that the transparent color does not go over the surface. She repeats this. As a result, oil paintings become richer like pencil drawings depicting the same thing as pictures. For example, we can see and feel the tactile sensation of the infant's eyes. Or the hair line drawn with a brush over a pencil drawing is delicate. How to enter Bokashi is also so effective that it is not a comparison with a pencil. Furthermore, the colorful appearance of Daisy's flowers at the feet, the place where the water flow leaking from the hose makes a rainbow ... etc.

As mentioned above, she creates a painting with a great deal of time and effort. Therefore, she is a poor work. Since I mentioned it carefully in "The Garden of Belly Buttom" , let's look at other works easily.

Let's see the amazing pencil drawing "Hybrid".This drawing drew a girl in a sweater. I am attracted only by the glossy texture of the hair of the wash-away style. Here, she draws the woolen stitches of the sweater in which the patterns of butterflies and dandelions are woven, up to a single wool yarn, and its shades and aya draw even finely as much as possible. I feel that the delicacy of the representation of each yarn of this one is as if looking at the microscope. This is the only thing you can do without seeing the actual thing that you absolutely do not understand with images or printing. If it looks as a whole it looks like a woolen fabric sweater without discomfort. There is something spectacular about the sophistication of this seemingly casual expression. But the emptiness of the girl's eyes is spooky on the other hand. Furthermore, I thought the girl 's lips so unbalanced. I looked at them in contrast to delicate hair and sweater depictions. Therefore, I was forced to pay attention to these of mine. I think that the excess of expression she has is breaking the balance of the screen. And I think that her expression goes through the reality of peace and goes to a world where no one else can reach.

I wrote that, now she is going to the world that surged through reality. I think that it is because her excessive expression breaks the balance of reality that seemingly seems peaceful. To that, I do not think that she is conscious. Perhaps I think that she draws as I see it. Let's see the painting "Sphinx". I want you to see the girl's hair. The hair that is neatly aligned shines glittering like a mirror. She draws the girl's hair carefully. When we see the hair of each one she draws it appears as a smooth and glowing mirror surface. Even just watching the hair of a girl, I get fascinated by this work. It can be said that the depiction of a girl's hair is excessive. But that is her painting. She was obliged to do so. Also, I want the girl's hands, especially the fingers, to be seen. I think that the size of the fingers of the hand is unbalanced. It is too big for girls' fingers. In addition, the wrinkle of a girl's fingers. And she drew a lot of fingers hair. This finger seems to be a finger of a mature man. As I mentioned earlier, I think that she is drawn as it is being watched. She is looking at a girl like that. Also, I think that her consciousness as a painter feels something that can not be satisfied simply by softly drawing a child with soft skin with fluffy.

Let's look at oil painting "Big Bang".She painted flowers of multicolored morning glories on one side of the large screen. I think the thin, soft touch and transparency of the morning glory petals in this painting are really wonderful. I can realistically feel the feel of leaf vein of this morning glory and thin and soft leaf hair. I feel the same thing as the feather of the peacock in "Like a Frend Hid in a Cloud". Soft touch like morning glory flowers and leaves, or peacock feathers is a life that is vivid for her and has a strong affinity. On the other hand, I describe what she says, hard ones can not be evaluated as high as children and flowers. Bamboo that the morning glory in "Big Bang" is stuck is kind and I can see. Moreover, I could not imagine the cold and hard feeling of bamboo, as opposed to I felt a soft touch to morning glory flowers. I think that probably she does not have a sense of affinity for the cold and hard one.