ARTIST

1973–2019、大分県出身のアーティスト。東京藝術大学美術学部油画専攻を卒業後、大学院修士課程を修了し、ドイツ・デュッセルドルフ国立クンストアカデミーに在籍しました。帰国後は国内外で精力的に作品を発表し、2009年には「第12回岡本太郎現代芸術賞」特別賞を受賞。代表作に《Calling》《ダテマキ》《東京尾行》などがあります。日常風景をビデオ撮影した映像をパソコン上でペンツールによりトレースし、ロトスコープ技法を用いて映像作品を制作してきました。現実と非現実が交錯する独自の世界観は高く評価されています。病と闘いながらも制作を続け、国内の展覧会に多数参加するなか、2019年3月9日に逝去しました。

Masaharu Sato(1973–2019) was an artist from Oita Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from the Oil Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, he completed a master’s degree and later studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany. After returning to Japan, he actively presented his work both domestically and internationally, and in 2009 he received the Special Prize at the 12th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art. His major works include Calling, Datemaki and Tokyo Trace. He created video works by filming everyday scenes and tracing the footage on a computer using a pen tool, employing the rotoscope technique. His distinctive worldview, in which reality and the unreal intersect, has been highly acclaimed. Despite battling illness, he continued to produce work and participate in numerous exhibitions in Japan until his passing on March 9, 2019.

展示作品

1.HANDS

《2O16-2O17》

Running time: 33 min (loop)

Animation, 33 channel video (HD, color, sound)
Collection of the artist

出品作の《ハンズ》（平成28-29 / 2016-2017年）は、猫をなでる手、入れ歯を洗う手、音楽を奏でる手、神に祈る手など、人々が世界と関係を結ぶために用いるさまざまな「手」の行為を撮影しトレースしてアーカイブされた、「手」の映像作品である。トレースは対象を「自分の中に取り込む」行為と語った作家の手もまた、映像の中で永遠にアーカイブされ続ける。

The exhibited work Hands (2016-2017) is a video piece that archives various actions of “hands” used by people to interact with the world, such as hands petting a cat, cleaning dentures, playing music, and praying to God. The artist described the act of tracing as “incorporating the subject into oneself,” and the artist’s own hands are eternally archived in the video.

２.I touch Dream #1

《1999》

Running time: 3 min 34 sec

Single Channel Video (Sd, B&W, Silent)

1999年、佐藤雅晴が東京芸術大学大学院を修了し、ドイツへ渡った直後に制作した最初の映像作品が《I touch Dream #1》である。異国での孤独な日々に佐藤が見続けていた悪夢を、木炭によるデッサンとして一枚ずつ描きとめ、ワンカットごとに撮影して連ねた3分34秒のモノクロ映像だ。不安定で断片的な夢のイメージを、一枚の画へ統合するのではなく、あえて個々の画を連続させることで立ち上がらせる。その単純だが切実な方法を試みるなかで、佐藤はアニメーションという表現の可能性に出会った。夢の断片を執拗にトレースし、写生し、反復し続ける行為は、やがて現実の風景へとじわりと重なり合い、私たちが生きる世界と、私たちが見る夢の世界との狭間に潜む「気配」を浮かび上がらせていく。

In 1999, I touch Dream #1, became Masaharu Sato’s first video work, created shortly after he completed his graduate studies at Tokyo University of the Arts and moved to Germany. The piece is a 3-minute-and-34-second black-and-white video composed of charcoal drawings, each depicting the nightmares Sato repeatedly experienced during his lonely days in a foreign country. These drawings were recorded one by one and edited together, shot by shot.
Rather than integrating unstable and fragmented dream images into a single drawing, Sato deliberately brought them into being through the succession of individual images. In attempting this simple yet urgent method, he encountered the expressive potential of animation. The persistent acts of tracing, sketching, and repeating fragments of dreams gradually begin to overlap with real landscapes, bringing to the surface a subtle “presence” that lies in the interstice between the world we live in and the world we see in our dreams.