YAMBARU ART FESTIVAL
2023-2024

ART PROGRAM

Hakkouichi enzu byoubu

At the ACAO OPEN RESIDENCE #5, held at the Hotel New Akao after the 2021 Mt. Izu mudslide disaster in Atami, a six-panel gold folding screen depicting an eight-forked serpent (Yamata no Orochi) was unveiled in that hotel's banquet hall, "The Great Serpent Banquet."
In the folding screen, the eight-forked serpent is drinking sake, eating food from the sea and mountains of Atami, and soaking in a hot spring.
By once again treating the eight-forked serpent in the story, which is based on the oldest disaster in Japan, to a banquet, the artist hopes that the damage from this landslide will not spread further and that the wounds will heal quickly.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to create a work associated with the dragon, the Chinese zodiac sign for the coming year, as part of a project with SGC, the artist decided to develop this dragon-like eight-forked serpent into a series of works.
In contrast to the "Great Snake Banquet" painted in sumi ink on a gold leaf ground, the artist worked on a counterpart to this folding screen using gold paint on a sumi ground.
The motif is Susanoo-no-Mikoto, who is said to have defeated the eight-forked serpent. The masked and expressionless people march in a procession around Susanoo-no-Mikoto, who is riding on a chariot.
Many of the motifs are things they have encountered in Okinawa. Are they on their way to exterminate the eight-forked serpent, as the folklore says?
Or, judging from the way they are holding sake and foodstuffs in their hands, do they just want to have a party?
The work was made into a pair of six-fold screens and titled "Hakkouichi enzu byoubu (The Eight-fold Banquet)." I feel that by having a pair of screens together, I was able to leave behind a work that symbolizes the atmosphere of this period.

Cooperation: SGC Co.

PROFILE

Yuta Niwa

PROFILE

Painter. While using the context and technical materials of Japanese painting, he creates his works by focusing on historical times in which invisible disasters and irresistible forces are depicted as dark entities. In 2019, after completing the graduate course in painting at Kyoto University of Arts, he went to Beijing to study. He is currently living and working at Koumyouin, the pagoda of Tofukuji Temple. His recent major exhibitions include the Art Collaboration Kyoto "Golden Fight of Gods," solo exhibition "Chimera Epidemic," MIDTOWN AWARD 2021, solo exhibition "Namazu no Koumyou," Yanbaru Art Festival Yanbaru Chishin, Art Award Marunouchi 2019, and more.