この絵は昨年展示会に出して、みんなこの前で写真を撮ってくれたりして力強さはある絵だったのだけど、私の中ではちょっと強過ぎてなんか無理している気がしていて、未完の絵でもあった。
たぶん、それは死を無理やり受け入れようとハッピーな死を頑張って創ろうとしていたからなのだと思う。
途中から母を偲んで描くようになったら優しいドクロを描けるようになってきて、“死ぬ時まで楽しく幸せでありたいな…！”という自分のエゴではなく、死の淵に立った他者のことを考えるようになった。
死と向き合ってきた人たちの話をご家族の方を通して触れるにつれて、だんだんと、“死ぬ時まで周りの人に楽しさを幸せな気持ちを、届けたいな。” 母も死ぬ時まで周りの人のことを考えてくれていたな…
そんなことを思いながら、そうやって死を迎えていった方々への感謝の気持ちとその美しさを表現できたらな、と感じるようになっていった。
そんなことを考えながら筆を取ったら、どんどん変化してきて自分の中で心に馴染む絵になった。
I showed this painting at an exhibition last year, and people would stop to take photos in front of it — it had real strength. But within me it felt a little too strong, a little forced, and in that sense it was also an unfinished painting.
I think that was because I was straining to accept death by force — trying hard to manufacture a happy death.
Partway through, I began to paint in memory of my mother, and gentle skulls started to come. I moved beyond my own ego — that wish to “stay happy and joyful right up until I die!” — and began to think of others standing at the edge of death.
As I came to know, through their families, the stories of people who had faced death, little by little I felt: “Until my own last moment, I want to bring joy and happiness to those around me.” My mother, too, kept thinking of the people around her until the very end…
Holding such thoughts, I came to hope I might express my gratitude toward those who met death that way, and the beauty of it.
When I took up the brush with all this in mind, the painting kept changing, until it became one that settled naturally into my heart.