HATSU YUME – two canvas 120.0 x 30.0 cm - Acrylic on Canvas. 2010.
Inspired by the short film Hatsu Yume (First Dream), created for the Sony Corporation by the artist Bill Viola in 1981.
I watched this film in 2001 at my first year at Art School. It struck me as a bad meditation, hallucinogenic slow motion film showing daily life in rural Japan. The strongest sense of meditation I felt was a scene towards the end of the 51-minute film of Japanese Koi Carp being filmed in their pool. Brightly coloured fish slowly drifting with perfect serenity through water, felt hypnotic and seductive. I hoped to capture this feeling through the abstract, originally a trip-tych, I later destroyed the middle section and kept the out two canvases.
A critical quote from this film is below
Unfolding as a dreamlike trance, Hatsu Yume is a startlingly beautiful, metaphorical work. Viola fuses a personal observation of Japanese culture with a metaphysical contemplation of life, death and nature, achieved through a symbolic exploration of video's relation to light and reflection.
And here is a link to the film itself on YouTube
