数年前のこと、瀬戸内の島で誰もいないはずの道沿いから何かの視線を感じ辺りを見渡すと、目線より 高いところにそびえ立つように等間隔に並んだ排水口が水を垂れ流しながら静かに佇んでいた。以来その 光景と感じた視線は心の奥底に留まり、ついに自分よりも高次元に位置する存在として抽象化し表出させる行為と化した。何層にも石膏を重ね、顔料と墨を置き、洗い出しと研ぎ出しを繰り返し、磨く。繰り返 される身体行為と排水口という「どこかとどこかをつなぐ」役割を持つツールによって自身と世界とのつながりを具現化させる。私が作品を作り上げる時に捧げる祈りの先は神仏ではなく、私自身の規範にある。 今まで母から教えられたこと、学んだこと、生きてきた時間が作り出した正しさと畏れと心許ない自信を持ってこれからも生きていく。「目」は私を見つめる「誰か」であり、私を見つめる「私」なのだ。
　神殿の中で自分と向き合うことは、象牙の塔に閉じこもるのと似ていて、いつか自分の足で塔から出て行く時が来ると確信しながら、今はまだ、塔を壊すことはできない。

高畑 彩佳

  A few years ago on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, I was on a mountain path and sensed someone looking at me, although no one was supposed to be there. From just above my sight line, there were drainage pipes with water slowly falling. This scene has remained with me since then, as if it were from another dimension. I have tried to abstract this experience in my work. I have repeatedly painted sumi - ink and mineral pigment layers of plaster to form these walls. I then sanded them down then finally polished the surface. I have embodied the connection between myself and the world through This repeated action, like a drainage pipe with the beginning and the end, that "connects one place with another". But I offer this work not to Gods or Buddha but to restrictions and demands I have in myself - what I learned from my mother, what I have studied, the truths from my experience, and the anxiety and uneasiness. I want to continue forward with them as there are. There was a "gaze" that was looking at me, but what I'm gazing at is myself.
  This work (temple) represents the act of confronting myself, confined in my "TOWER OF IVORY". I believe there will be a day when I can step out of the tower but at the moment I cannot destroy it.

Sayaka TAKABATAKE