Takeover: #137 Shimon Kamada
Shimon Kamada: Instagram / Website
#137 (9/11 - 15/11 2020) written by Anisa Demirci and Cheyenne Pattiwaël
Shimon Kamada, who graduated in Fine Art from the HKU in 2020, will take us on a visual journey, by sharing stories and connecting with us.
Making art is a way to express himself and tell stories, allowing him to communicate and connect with others. His work can be described as storytelling through painting. He paints his narratives and personal experiences, combining and intertwining elements, dreamy scenery and daily life, surrealism and magic realism, leading up to paintings that ask you: “What do you see?” The ambiguity in the work stimulates the viewer’s curiosity and imagination.
“I want them to imagine their own story through seeing my work. I think that my work has a chance and capability of evoking diverse stories and spreading narratives together with the viewers. I want to leave room for their own interpretation.”
Cultural connotations are visible in his content, but also in his techniques. Having studied in The Netherlands, he has incorporated the Dutch realism painting techniques, next to integrating his Japanese background in his paintings. He does so by connecting specific meanings from Japanese culture to the imagery. His inspiration comes from urban legends, superstition, myths, movies, novels, often from Japan.
To start with a new work, Shimon looks through photographs he took and combines them. By adding abstraction, another layer, deconstructing it and changing drafts within the painting, he forms his own stories and takes on experimental approaches. Lately, Shimon has been experimenting with secondhand canvases, painting over already existing images. In this way he appropriates that imagery and collaborates with an anonymous painter.
“Images change during the process and it’s nice to see the story unravel and reveal itself.”
We want to leave you with this quote by Shimon himself: “My painting concentrates on intertwining truth and fiction, figuration and abstraction. When my works evoke something unseeable such as silence, temperature, or smell from the objects, these invisible things could provide viewers a sense of nostalgia in their narrative space.”
Making art is a way to express himself and tell stories, allowing him to communicate and connect with others. His work can be described as storytelling through painting. He paints his narratives and personal experiences, combining and intertwining elements, dreamy scenery and daily life, surrealism and magic realism, leading up to paintings that ask you: “What do you see?” The ambiguity in the work stimulates the viewer’s curiosity and imagination.
“I want them to imagine their own story through seeing my work. I think that my work has a chance and capability of evoking diverse stories and spreading narratives together with the viewers. I want to leave room for their own interpretation.”
Cultural connotations are visible in his content, but also in his techniques. Having studied in The Netherlands, he has incorporated the Dutch realism painting techniques, next to integrating his Japanese background in his paintings. He does so by connecting specific meanings from Japanese culture to the imagery. His inspiration comes from urban legends, superstition, myths, movies, novels, often from Japan.
To start with a new work, Shimon looks through photographs he took and combines them. By adding abstraction, another layer, deconstructing it and changing drafts within the painting, he forms his own stories and takes on experimental approaches. Lately, Shimon has been experimenting with secondhand canvases, painting over already existing images. In this way he appropriates that imagery and collaborates with an anonymous painter.
“Images change during the process and it’s nice to see the story unravel and reveal itself.”
We want to leave you with this quote by Shimon himself: “My painting concentrates on intertwining truth and fiction, figuration and abstraction. When my works evoke something unseeable such as silence, temperature, or smell from the objects, these invisible things could provide viewers a sense of nostalgia in their narrative space.”