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Clint Takeda Often I find artist's statements to be problematic because they feel
like explanations for the art when what I really strive for in making
art is to create a thing that is unexplainable. The best feeling I get
working in the studio is that moment while assembling a piece when I start
to laugh because the object suddenly works as a sculpture but at that
same instant I don't know why, or sometimes even what it is that I've
made. In art I want to be confounded yet completely seduced by an object.
My goal is to make sculpture whose multiple parts combine to become a
physical enigma with an abundance of charm. One of the main and constant influences on my work has been Japanese
Buddhist sculpture from the 600's to 1200's. This may have always been
the case but not until a few years ago did I fully embrace and purposely
emphasize this connection. As a child I lived in Japan near Tokyo and
I would spend my summers 300 miles away near Nara where my relatives lived.
Often I was taken on family picnics to the parks surrounding the temples
where the sculptures resided. Returning to Japan many years later as an
artist I was able to revisit those temples and the many carved wood deities
within and became completely and forever affected by the grace and power
of their imagery and their form. With the images of these deities in mind
I feel that I have an eternal source of inspiration for my continually
expanding tribe of sculptures. |