"Now" is like the crest of a wave

"Now" is like the crest of a wave, risen up from the infinite surface of the sea of space-time.

It seems to happen quite often to us when we are children: we run into a complex philosophical problem, and fall into deep thought about it. In my case, once when I was thinking about some manga is something where, in general, as a prerequisite, the subjective viewpoint of individual humans is overcome: it is something depicted from a transcendental place, and all that this appearing person, this "I", can do is perform a part ! I will never become anyone apart from myself, and I can only view this world through my own eyes!" This was a great and sudden shock to me. It was the beginning of the indistinct sense I had of being able to conceptualize that each individual human consciousness is discontinuous. I still wonder if that experience was the first awakening of the various philosophical aporia within me, in relation to the awareness of one's own "self".

However, on the other hand, given how long a human life is, perhaps human consciousness itself is something existing in an entirely

other dimension: something connected to a different existence or awareness or space-time. I surreptitiously began to believe in this concept. Various religions (especially Buddhism or Eastern thought), and various philosophies such as, for example, Jungian psychology or the physics of the New New Scientists, are all continuations of the whispers of such possibilities. Accordingly, our consciousness - as something of the "here, now" - is the very material, three-dimensional world before our eyes; or, to consider it from an even more inclusive standpoint, namely from the surface of this certain world that is ever expanding and transcending the differences of space-time; it is something like the crest of a wave that has risen up in a mere brief moment/space in time. Thus, the concept is that through such a certain type of all-inclusive world" )and its fundamental underlying commonality), we are connected to different existences or awareness or space-times.

The work "the now is" which Kariya Hiroshi continues to depict is the conscious realization that "I am here, now". At the same time, the fact that it is something that has appeared before our eyes means it belongs to the more all-inclusive world, connected to it: such is the appearance of this crest of a single wave. In this solo exhibition at Mizuma Art Gallery, his first in 21 years, "the now is" is like a hand-copied sutra in a single handful of speck-like seeds, within a frame the size of the palm of your hand affixed onto a transparent board.

On its reverse can be seen transparent memo-pads used as blotting paper. The work as such as exhibited in quantities to completely cover the walls of the gallery space. (Within it are blended in works to which faces have been attached to these individual sutra, too.) Kariya in his notes describes these art works as a rice fields (perhaps because the "specks" here denote the grains of rice he uses). In my imagination, the appearance of the works all shown on display together, rather, connotes an endless sense of space-time: presenting the external appearance of the phenomenon of the "sea" itself. And on the surface of that sea, the individual small phenomena = the individual specks that rise to the surface before one's eyes.

A seed contains, within its small internal space, the entirely of the process of the organism that shall grow out from it afterwards. A seed is a microcosm. And these seed sutras containing these microcosms extend further and further to transcend all walls, making up the form of a macrocosm. This continuous, unbroken work of Kariya's has developed over a long period of several decades. It takes the form of traces of an artwork that have themselves, over time, with instances of intervals and of playfulness, formed the puzzling beginnings to a question. Further, they are laced with a certain form of humour, and both a magnificence and richness that encompasses our own beings, too, so that the work absolutely appears to bear sensations of both affection and tranquility. I greatly look forward to this special opportunity to view Kariya Hiroshi's solo exhibition. Yasushi Kurabayashi, art critic