Rinpa Eshidan
January 11, 2008
My friend told me about this group earlier this break. This group of artists takes the idea of ‘art as process’ to heart – they create organic works with various mediums, like paints, markers, papers, leaves, etc. that never stay in one static state for longer than several hours. Once a piece reaches a certain level of ‘completion’ these artists proceed to break down what they had just created and recreate something completely new, sometimes from scratch, sometimes using one or two of the previous elements.
I was doing a small job this break and was running dry of ideas. Watching their videos instantly inspired me though – the bold, thick illustrations was a style I certainly clicked with. I love this one in particular, titled “1 week of art works”. Great illustration, and you could see how they start anew or isolate one element of one state and take it to the next – essentially showing exactly how these artists think.
From their site:
“Rinpa” is a word created by the founders of the group meaning “to bring people together, while “Eshidan” essentially means “art crew.” The Rinpa Eshidan is a team of artists brought together by a common creative expression.
With their philosophy of truly organic art, their emphasis shifts from the creation of the piece to the process of creation – and this is all recorded on tape. Thus the record of the process of creation becomes the actual artwork, which are all put on their website at http://rinpaeshidan.jp/works/index.html
