Term: July ’25 – January 26′
Hal Osawa (Tokyo, 1997) “At first glance, this series, Onomatopoeia, might appear to be abstract paintings. However, they are depictions of images created through incidental printing. The draft for this series was created by dripping ink onto the platen glass of a photocopying machine and printing the result. The final print reflects both chance and intent. I then paint this printed image onto a canvas by hand. Although this act is one of reproduction, it simultaneously becomes a unique act of creation, containing the paradox of being both a reproduction and not a reproduction at the same time. Walter Benjamin suggested in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction that the “aura” of art dissipates with reproduction, but does my act not, in fact, generate this “aura?” I digitally reproduce an image and then reproduce it again in an analog form, thus embedding the ambiguity of the value between the copy and the original. These works embody a new form of figurative painting.”
