Sunday, October 14, 2007

Poetry with paint - the art of Naoto Hattori


"Some people think my visions are very weird and hard to understand. To me they are natural and flow freely from my mind. I don’t know when it developed, as I’ve been creating and visualizing imaginary worlds ever since I was a child. Now as an adult I paint my feelings and emotions — it is like poetry with paint.
It is not difficult for me to create my images, they come to me automatically. If I imagine a flying vagina with wings smoking out of a penis shaped bong, I see the vision clearly in my mind.
At times I am dumbfounded by my own abilities. I’ve been painting for 10 years, yet there seems no end to the flow of imagery—it grows day by day.
At first the images seem confusing and meaningless, but as I create they become clarified. Then I learn from the paintings. As my inner self is revealed, I feel great satisfaction and relief.
Some people open their mind to a more visionary world with drugs. While my visions may have similarities to drug induced hallucinations, I achieve this without drugs.
Also there are similarities to my visions and those found in dreams. Like dreams they are varied and can be sweet, nightmarish, or just funny and weird.

I paint whatever I imagine and don’t compromise or lie to myself. In this way I maintain purity of thought and the originality of my work."

- Naoto Hattori -

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