Enrico Isamu Oyama: Developing Creative Activities in the Birthplace of Street Art

I studied abroad around the summer of my second year of high school, and as you say, I feel a change in myself before and after that experience.

Shortly before going to Italy, I became interested in street art—what we called graffiti back then. The catalyst was being influenced by high school classmates and seniors who were into skateboarding, breakdancing, DJing, and being in bands. I wanted something I could immerse myself in, and while searching for something unique to me, I was drawn to street art.

My study abroad destination in Italy was a dormitory in the countryside, so I had a lot of time. Living there was a new experience in itself. That experience created a good chemistry, and I think my interest and motivation for street art and expression just kept expanding within me.

After that, when I returned to Japan and thought about my future path, I think a sense of "what is it that I should be doing?" began to emerge.

I think my interest in creation probably stems from the overall free academic culture of Keio Shiki. For example, there were friends skateboarding near the pilotis of the school, or friends coming to school in skater fashion. I think there was inspiration at that level. There was a natural stimulation from the environment that made me want to do that kind of expression myself.

On the other hand, not just at Keio Shiki but in Japan in the early 2000s, street culture—especially things originating from New York—was popular. For example, the so-called "Ura-Hara boom" saw unique Japanese street fashion and culture emerge under the influence of American street fashion, and I was intrigued by reading magazines that featured Western street art. I think I was naturally influenced by those subcultures as well.

I remember the Shukusai very well. Looking back, I was certainly doing something that connects to the live painting I do in various places now. In my case, I didn't have opportunities to present outside of school through club activities, so the school festival was the only place to present my activities to others.

I just remembered, when 9/11 happened, I have a memory of painting on plywood with that as a theme. I think I painted President Bush on one side, Osama bin Laden's face on the other, and the words "LOVE & PEACE" in the middle. At the time, in my own way, I was greatly affected by the major event of 9/11, and I think I expressed that using aerosol paint, which was the expressive tool I had.

That graduation mural feels like the starting point in a larger sense. At first, I just wanted to leave something behind at the high school, even if it was a long shot. I thought there was no way they would let me spray-paint a school wall since it wasn't an art school, but when I asked, Mr. Miyahashi told me to submit a proposal.

Instead of rejecting it from the start, he said he would listen to the story first, so I should organize my thoughts and submit them. I was very happy to be treated as an adult in that way. So I made a proper plan, did solid sketches, and when I submitted the proposal, I got an "OK." I was like, "Is it really okay?" (laughs).

Once I started, it was harder than I thought. In the end, I didn't make it in time for graduation. So, I left it in an unfinished state. My mother told me, "You've been given permission to do something rare like painting on a school wall, so finish it to the end," and I remember working hard to finally complete it around summer.

That was actually something where I wrote the lyrics "Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away" from a song called "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" by Pearl Jam, an American rock band I really like. It's a song with the image of an elderly woman sitting behind a counter in a small rural town in America, and I interpreted it as a song about good old memories.

When you graduate, memories of school might fade and weather away, but I wanted to express in my own way that they were certainly there. So if I were to give it a title, I feel it would be those lyrics themselves.

Alternatively, since I give serial numbers like "#150" to all my works, in the sense of it being the origin, I feel like calling it a number that isn't a number, like "0" or "X."

Street art and aerosol writing originated in New York, USA, and there is an aspect of entering a subculture community to conduct something like a field study of its actual state. So I thought Professor Watanabe's seminar would fit my interests well.

Rather than being "guided," it was a very free relationship where I would talk about whatever I wanted and Professor Watanabe would listen with a "hmm" and occasionally say something sharp.

For example, "scribbling" something on a wall in town is a universal human act. You could say it has always been with humanity, from the Lascaux cave paintings in ancient times.

However, "graffiti" in the sense of a certain expertise we are talking about here refers to a type of expression that emerged in New York from the late 1960s to the early 70s, primarily using aerosol paint to write names on the sides of subways. Over about 50 years, it developed into a global expressive culture, or an art form.

The word "graffiti," which has become established in the world, translates to "scribbling" in Japanese, and it still contains negative social nuances like property damage (vandalism), legal violations, and nuisance. This is true from the perspective of civil society, and even those practicing it often internalize the attribute of being a kind of underground vandal.

In contrast, there is the word "writing." This "write" means to write a name. When this culture was first born in New York, the practitioners who started it used the term "writing"—the act of "writing a name"—as a purely objective, extremely neutral name for the act, without negative connotations.

Personally, when interpreting this culture, I take the position of interpreting its history differently by actively using the word "writing" rather than "graffiti."

The "aerosol" in "Aerosol Writing" refers to the art material or tool, but it's not just a material; there is a unique conceptual aspect to the expression of aerosol spray. I use the term "Aerosol Writing" to emphasize that, and it is linked to my identity as an artist.

"Street art" is a general term that encompasses all artistic expressions performed on the street. It's not limited to "graffiti" or "aerosol writing"; for example, Banksy uses stencils to create figurative works that warn about global warming, using expressions with messages that are easy for many people to understand. I call everything including those things "street art."

"Quick Turn Structure" is something I have been drawing since around the time I graduated from Keio Shiki. In writing, the writer expresses themselves by writing a "name." The basic practice of writing is to create a new name that is not your real name—an "Alter Ego" that is continuous with your real self but slightly different—and express yourself by drawing a self-portrait of that created other self, which is also a signature.

However, I wasn't actually very interested in writing names in the city and presenting them publicly. Instead, I was drawn to the dynamism of the lines, the three-dimensional spatiality, and the formal elements contained in the shapes of the letters. So, I removed the framework of letters and names, extracted only the movement of the lines, and by repeating and reconstructing them, I created the motif called "Quick Turn Structure."

By doing so, I believe I can become free from various constraints. Originally, names were written on subway cars because subways circulate through the city and can be seen by many people, but as a result, it became a kind of fundamentalism where it wasn't "authentic" unless it was written on subways or streets.

In contrast, to become free from that again, I believe that by dismantling powerful motifs like subways, streets, and "names" and reducing them to abstract objects of pure line movement, I can diffuse them into various media once more.

In other words, I can paint in the city, on subways, and in museums, and I can collaborate with companies and various organizations. I believe I can increase variations and keep diffusing them according to various media and various social and conceptual contexts.

For one thing, New York is the birthplace of writing and street art, so it has a history of about 50 years as a culture.

Today, street art and writing have become global phenomena, and the most cutting-edge place isn't necessarily New York, but from the perspective of vertical history, New York has an overwhelming legacy, and the pioneers are still alive, allowing for direct interaction.

Also, not limited to street art, New York is a center for modern and contemporary art, and it has an aspect of being the home base for abstract painting and abstract visual art in particular.

My interest lies in connecting the abstract part of the visual aspect in the complex expressive culture of "Aerosol Writing" to the concept of abstraction in modern and contemporary art. Therefore, New York, which has a great history in both street-style abstraction and abstraction in modern and contemporary painting, is a very meaningful place for me.

Even with the same black, the black of sumi ink and the black of aerosol paint are completely different. Sumi ink is a liquid, so it spreads well. If you dissolve black paint in water, it becomes very thin and flat black by the amount of water used. So, even the same black is completely different, and it's not just different as a color, but also in terms of functionality and texture within the act of actually drawing.

For example, this work at Keio Museum Commons, "FFIGURATI#314," is painted with aerosol paint. Spraying is a delivery system, and what's inside is oil-based paint. However, because it's sprayed with gas pressure rather than applied with a brush, it turns out completely different even if it's the same oil-based paint.

Also, even with the black in the same work, it looks different depending on what material it's sprayed on, whether you see it with a black background, in the presence of light, or whether it's swaying or still.

This is a work I created at the request of Keio Museum Commons. Originally, this KeMCo StudI/O was a room used by students that contains various equipment for digital fabrication. The back is a darkroom, and the request was to create a work with some kind of function to partition it from this space.

Within that, the idea of a curtain emerged. I myself was interested in things like partitioning space, swaying in a partitioned space, and layer-like qualities where you can see through from one side to the other.

Curtains move and overlap, or create bellows-like undulations when one side is closed, showing various appearances. I hope that as this building is used, new ways of seeing the work will be discovered.

I think it's wonderful that a home base has been established on the Mita Campus where digital creation can be done alongside the exhibition of real cultural properties, and where art and culture can be archived and researched.

Keio University is a university with history and has various legacies, so I have great expectations for how those will be considered and utilized from both digital and real perspectives at this new base.