Moment and Eternity
Third Floor, Singapore
At first sight, Japanese artist Shinji Ohmaki's latest work is like a delicate floral mandala, or a colourful tattoo blooming on pristine white skin. Yet, beneath the motifs - inspired by traditional kimono patterns - are intimations of death and destruction.
A kaleidoscope of ground-glass pigments painstakingly applied with stencils to the white, felt-carpeted floor, the installation Moment and Eternity is on at Hermes' Third Floor gallery in Singapore until June 3. While many artists would surround their time-consuming creation with velvet ropes and do-not-touch signs, Ohmaki wants his audience to step on his work. Visitors arriving at the gallery first admire the installation from a little area off to its side; they then sit down on cream-cushioned benches to slip plastic covers over their shoes before entering and walking through the 'flowers'.
The effect is almost one of Zen-like meditation, as shoppers flow by on busy Orchard Road below.
'I've been working under the theme of death recently,' says Gifu-born Ohmaki, 41, as he sits and observes how people react to the colours he has laid out - his form of 'voyeurism' about culture, as he puts it.
We are talking about how the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku last year has affected the way he makes art, and he adds: 'After the tsunami incident, we really witnessed the death of people just like that. At the same time, we refuse to see as well. When you watch the news on TV, you don't see the dead bodies. This is a kind of refusal to see. It is only when we can see death, how to deal with somebody's death, that we can figure out how to continue life.'