A2Z Art Gallery is proud and happy to present "today is the day", the new creative opus by Takashi Hara, a visual artist living and working in Tokyo, who has just completed an artist residency in Okinawa, Japan.
By combining the visual arts (sculpture and painting) with music, sound, song and poetry, Takashi Hara stages the multiple identities of living beings inhabited by complex feelings and memories and pays special tribute to the departure of his once musician grandfather.
Takashi Hara immerses us in a play of writing and vivid colors projected onto the canvas with energy and expressiveness. The work has a ternary rhythm: the melancholy of the past, the torments and joys of the present and the hope of a future to be designed together.
His animal avatar, the pig, is for him the universal spiritual allegory of the animal-man. As the philosopher Denis Viennet points out, "becoming an animal is not about imitating or doing the animal. Becoming an animal would rather be a work on oneself requiring an asceticism". It is this inner path, visual and acoustic, redemptive and outlet, that the artist wishes to take us on. Pigs the way with repentance and love, peace and benevolence, respect and listening.
Can you hear it? The pigs whisper a poem to us. Let us listen to them:
Today is the day
I noticed that I have cried enough
Today is the day
We will smile out of the shadows soon
Today is the day
A rocket full of hope lands on the moon
Today is the day
Missiles attack without emotion, life’s tough
Today is the day
My friend's neck was twisted by an irrepressible ego
Today is the day
Do not cover your face, let your smile show
Today is the day
I realize the world is full of lies
Today is the day
My child’s hope dies
Today is the day
My Grandpa passed away
Today is the day
Le temps des cerises is here to stay
Today is the day
Differences become positive supplies
Today is the day
The sunrise opens my eyes
Today is the day
I’m finally taking a step forward.
— “It is, it was, it will be”, June 2022
a poem by Takashi Hara
