"I started my full-fledged activities as an art business in 2018. I started uploading the paintings I learned on my own on social media. From there, I had various connections, and I participated in exhibitions held at Kiyomizu-dera Temple in Kyoto, Yokohama Red Brick, Prague in the Czech Republic, and Paris in France, as well as participating in the production of art books in Japan. At the Yokohama Red Brick exhibition, there were customers who stood in front of my paintings for more than 15 minutes, and I was so happy that I still vividly remember that my heart was filled with 'I wanted to see this scenery.'
The theme I use when painting is that "beauty is alive in us." It depicts the happiness that you feel in a moment of ordinary everyday life."
ENAMI uses unique wavy lines and patterns to create vivid and beautiful abstract paintings. While giving a delicate and mysterious impression, it is said that it also expresses the idea of wabi-sabi. Within a few years of starting his full-fledged art business, he has been exhibiting at exhibitions in Japan and abroad and producing art books. The roots of its unique way of expressing themselves go back to childhood. The reason I started painting was in my family environment at the time. He recalls that painting was a peace of mind.
"I started painting when I was a child. The family environment at that time was spectacular, and as a place of peace of mind, I often visited the shrine in the neighborhood. The shrine is a place full of greenery when you go down the wooden stairs behind the main shrine and there are large trees with large roots in the river and around it. So I bent down and painted using the juice squeezed from the leaves and the branches of trees. This is the unique ripple lines and patterns that lead to the current painting. For me at that time, the reason I was able to immerse myself in the painful reality was to draw at the shrine in this way. Looking back now, it may have been a place to escape."
InterviewFeatured Artist
ENAMI
From a painting that was a support to a painting that heals many people
The origin is the picture I painted at the shrine that was an "escape place"
Thoughts on painting evoked by art materials
"When I was in elementary school, I saw Seiji Fujishiro's shadow puppet art on TV for the first time. I remember being moved. I wanted to draw more, and from junior high school I belonged to the art club. One day, on the day of the event, I happened to see a painting I drew for a cultural festival exhibition according to my guidance, and on the day of the event, a music teacher said in front of a large number of people, "What is this boring painting...". I admit that some people think so now, but at that time, I felt that my family problems, which were getting worse, spurred me to completely deny my existence and my paintings. Since then, I have decided to leave the painting environment for more than 20 years. It was a period when the memory of painting gradually faded and disappeared for some reason."
ENAMI completely sealed the painting due to a heartless word. From then on, even if I had the opportunity to admire the paintings, I just thought, "It's beautiful...". I even thought, "It's better to throw away your opinions and ideas without making waves." However, the art materials he accidentally touched regained his desire for painting.
"In 2018, I had the opportunity to go see a painting called Mandala with a colleague, and the artist asked me, 'Would you like to touch the art materials?' As soon as I touched the art materials, I couldn't stop crying. At that moment, the old memory of running the paintbrush came back to me, and I realized the weight of the meaning of that experience. I am happy to be able to paint even in a difficult environment. I couldn't afford to focus on that happiness, and I was doing my best to live, but I was convinced that I could paint it now. From there, I began to draw my own abstract paintings that incorporated the ripple lines and patterns I drew in my childhood, as well as Japan culture, onmyodo, and the ideas of mandalas."
ENAMI completely sealed the painting due to a heartless word. From then on, even if I had the opportunity to admire the paintings, I just thought, "It's beautiful...". I even thought, "It's better to throw away your opinions and ideas without making waves." However, the art materials he accidentally touched regained his desire for painting.
"In 2018, I had the opportunity to go see a painting called Mandala with a colleague, and the artist asked me, 'Would you like to touch the art materials?' As soon as I touched the art materials, I couldn't stop crying. At that moment, the old memory of running the paintbrush came back to me, and I realized the weight of the meaning of that experience. I am happy to be able to paint even in a difficult environment. I couldn't afford to focus on that happiness, and I was doing my best to live, but I was convinced that I could paint it now. From there, I began to draw my own abstract paintings that incorporated the ripple lines and patterns I drew in my childhood, as well as Japan culture, onmyodo, and the ideas of mandalas."
The pursuit of fluid aesthetics
"There is an idea in mandalas that presupposes perfection and symmetry, but I had doubts about it. Because I think perfection and incompleteness exist together, and I find beauty in being fluid. Everything in people's thoughts and days is an eternal continuity. Art is an activity that captures an eternal moment that is constantly changing, and creates a new form from the artist's point of view. It is an important encounter where every moment is never repeated, and I feel that true beauty dwells in the change. I hope that my work will be a part of its beauty, a meeting or a third meeting of the fluctuating impermanence, and that it will touch someone's awareness and heart."
ENAMI feels beauty in fluid and unfinished things, and depicts the small happiness in everyday life. We can achieve this because we have always valued our feelings and have aligned our thoughts and actions. The paintings that supported ENAMI in her childhood will become a hub that will have a positive impact on many people in the future.
"The work that returned to my origins as a painter is 'Deep Green and Fairy Leaves'. When he returned to his hometown, he stopped by a shrine that was his childhood escape and painted it. It is now called Totoro Forest, but it is also a work that allowed me to honestly express my memories and emotions of that time while feeling nostalgic that there might have been a fairy when I was drawing and playing. In the future, I would like to update my SNS and HP as well as exhibitions of original paintings from Japan and abroad, and enhance it as an online solo exhibition. The focus is to express colors unique to Japan. I want to cherish the pictures that can only be drawn because Japan has a rich sense of color in the world. I would be happy if I could convey the small happiness of daily life through paintings and become a healer for many people around the world."
ENAMI feels beauty in fluid and unfinished things, and depicts the small happiness in everyday life. We can achieve this because we have always valued our feelings and have aligned our thoughts and actions. The paintings that supported ENAMI in her childhood will become a hub that will have a positive impact on many people in the future.
"The work that returned to my origins as a painter is 'Deep Green and Fairy Leaves'. When he returned to his hometown, he stopped by a shrine that was his childhood escape and painted it. It is now called Totoro Forest, but it is also a work that allowed me to honestly express my memories and emotions of that time while feeling nostalgic that there might have been a fairy when I was drawing and playing. In the future, I would like to update my SNS and HP as well as exhibitions of original paintings from Japan and abroad, and enhance it as an online solo exhibition. The focus is to express colors unique to Japan. I want to cherish the pictures that can only be drawn because Japan has a rich sense of color in the world. I would be happy if I could convey the small happiness of daily life through paintings and become a healer for many people around the world."