TAKAFUMI HARA

In his painting and installations, Takafumi Hara seeks to uncover and explore history and memories—both those deep within his own subconscious, and those related to specific communities. The juxtaposition of his brightly coloured illustrative style with foreboding themes speaks to the depths of the human mind, and his community projects reveal the universal appeal of uncovering, personalising, and participating in history.

Powerful imagery abounds throughout Hara’s art and is said to originate from before he embarked on a career as artist—he began painting as a child to come to terms with his anxieties. Recurring imagery such as white candles, wolves, planes, and girls in long nightclothes make frequent appearances and tell poignant narratives that frequently delve into dark, violent, and erotic themes. His paintings often utilise Western comic book formats, but elements cut across the frames to create dynamic movement, overriding chronology and logic just as nightmares do. Song of Songs (2014), a work from a solo exhibition by the same name, depicts a girl melting into a white candle, and all around incoherent segments of storybooks depict her being hounded by wolves and crows, planes and the imperial Japanese flag, and shards of broken floorboards. Hara thus accurately portrays the terror and the broken narratives that characterise nightmares.

Hara’s most-recognised series is the Pink Windows Project, a large-scale community art project begun in 1998 where he collaborates with locals to connect them to their community and their history. For these site-specific works, which he has done in cities across Asia, Europe, and South America, he covered the windows in prominent buildings with paintings—usually on a pink board—that draw attention to the unique cultural heritage of the area. Not only does he conduct thorough interviews with locals, but he elicits their help in the painting and installation stages.

The Pink Windows Project uses stencilled lettering in the manner of European illustrated books of expressions from the people he interviews, his own thoughts, or passages from the Bible or other sources. Fragments of history are thus pieced together and left up for interpretation, making the history both public and personalized. For Signs of Memory 2006 in Wiesbaden, Germany, Hara commandeered windows of the Central Station and the water tower overhead—the site where during WWII Jews were herded before being sent to concentration camps. This connected the town in a tangible way to a horrific episode in history, but also was a source of inspiration, as the words he used were of a survivor who miraculously returned to Wiesbaden. Other versions tackle contemporary social issues, such as one he made on the occasion of the 2006 Singapore Biennale where he boarded up the windows of the City Hall with painting featuring the words of Singaporeans of all backgrounds. The historic colonial-era building took on a strikingly different appearance and meaning with the long windows between the pillars filled in with a uniform shocking pink, stylised figures, and more importantly the text. Despite being an ethnically and religiously diverse nation, there is sometimes little interaction between groups in Singapore, so the City Hall became a rare opportunity for many to hear the honest opinions of people from different backgrounds only made possible by a visiting artist from Japan. It was a site for constructive dialog and ultimately a hopeful and uplifting message for the future of this young nation.

Hara showed in following museums and institutions:
“Pocket book” MOCA Taipei, Taiwan (2010)
The 4th Fuchu Biennale, Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2008)
das abc der Bilder, Perganon muserm, Berlin, Germany (2007)
Singapore Biennale, City Hall, Singapore (2006)
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Niigata, Japan (2006)
Sign Kunstverein Wiesbaden NKV, Wiesbaden, Germany (2006)

Text by Ruben van Mansum