Trance Vision / 2003 / Pokhara, Nepal, Acryric Painting, 45*60 cm
Thangka
ネパールを初めて旅した時に、タンカと呼ばれるチベット由来の仏教の細密画を描いて売っているおみやげ屋さんが沢山あるのを見て、描きたいモチーフがあったのでポカラへ行ったときにタンカを教えてくれながらそこの工房兼お店で描かせてくれる先生を見つけて、そこで２か月くらい描いて完成させました。昔は岩絵具でしたが高価なので現在はアクリル絵具が主流です。キャンバスは普通の白いシーツのような生地に、硬くて薄いチョコレートのような色のヤクという動物の固形の皮脂をお湯で溶かして塗り重ねると、その上に絵具が載るキャンバス生地が出来上がります。その工程をまだ当時若かった先生と一緒に自転車で布を買いに行くところからやって、これが建築で遠回りしてからやっとまた絵画に戻って来る大きなきっかけとなった出来事でした。
During my first trip to Nepal, I saw many souvenir shops selling Tibetan-originated Buddhist miniature paintings called thangkas, and I had a motif I wanted to paint, so when I went to Pokhara, I found a teacher who would teach me thangka and let me paint in the artist’s workshop/shop, where I spent about two months working on it and completed it. In the past, mineral pigments were used, but they are expensive, so acrylic paints are now mainstream. The canvas is made from a regular white sheet-like material, and the solid sebum of an animal called a yak, which is hard and lightly chocolate-colored, is dissolved in hot water and applied in layers, creating a canvas on which the paint can be applied. I went through the process with my teacher, who was still young at the time, and we went on bicycles to buy fabric, and this was a major turning point that finally led me back to painting after my long detour in architecture.
タンカはアクリル絵具を使って現在は描きますが、時間が掛かり難しいのはグラデーションの部分です。ベタの部分はすぐ終わるのですが、グラデーションの部分は細い筆先をさらに細くして、入れ墨のように点で描いて行きます。それはやろうと思えば小さな面積でもいくらでも時間を掛けて細かい綺麗なグラデーションを描くことが出来ます。私が描きたかったのは真ん中の鳥のようなデザインの曼荼羅で、タンカとして描く３年ほど前に日本にいたときに描いてデザインしたものでした。タンカには色々大体決まっている描き方があり、雲の形、下の方にある花のようなデザイン、水面の波紋、そのようなものは描き方を教えて貰いながら描いて行きました。
I currently paint thangkas using acrylic paints, but it is the gradations that take the most time and are difficult. The solid parts are done quickly, but for the gradations I use an even thinner brush tip and paint in dots like a tattoo. If I wanted to, I could take as much time as I wanted to create a beautiful, detailed gradation even on a small area. What I wanted to paint was the bird-like mandala in the middle, which I had designed while I was in Japan about three years before painting it as a thangka. There are many things about thangkas that are generally painted in a set way, and I was taught how to paint the cloud shapes, the flower-like designs at the bottom, the ripples on the water surface, and so on.