Norio Kajiura

Born in 1951 in Okayama, Japan. Entered the Tokyo National University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Crafts (Design) in 1970. Entered Oil Painting Technique and Material, the graduate school of Fine Arts, of the same university in 1975. After graduation, stayed 1 year as a research student. In 1981-1982, studied in Vienna National Art University sculpture course and conducted research on art mainly in Vienna and also in other areas of Austria and in Germany. He was impressed by the how art from different eras and different trends are connected naturally to the everyday life of people and this lead him to stay in Vienna, aspiring to create and exhibit art. After returning to Japan temporarily, in 1986, he moved to Vienna on a full-time basis and lived there creating and exhibiting art. In the end of 2017, he moved his base of operations back to Japan.

A text form the first solo exhibition in Vienna, 1987.

Our world, a space, is filled with “waves” or “energy”, which can also be called possibility. An empty world, a vacuum, a void or nothing, has the accumulation of waves which have the possibility to create everything, which appears in the form of various things. At one time in the form of sound, and in other times in the form of light, color, or matter and so on. Matter, a single particle, can be understood as one form of these trapped waves. This world consists of this matter and the things relating and affecting each other equally.
A sound is a different form of light and substance. A light is a different form of substance and sound. This also applies to a substance, too. I create my work based on reading, and assuming those relationships and interactions from various points of view.
My art work is always beyond the concept of just painting or sculpture but is also language, sound, music, physics, religious studies and/or something equal to those. Depending on the observer, the environment, and the condition surrounding the art piece, the state of the work itself will transform. All substance and matter does not always exist in a fixed form. It alters freely in each relationship and keeps presenting correctly in an existing balance. This way of thinking is the basis for my creation.

- ma -

We, Japanese people, use this word generally in our daily life. At the same time, we are aware that this word has important and special meaning. In daily life, we often use this word to express the state or the content of things, or the good and evil of it. The meaning of the word changes, in various ways, according to the circumstances and the state. The simplest meaning of the word will be “an interval or space between time or between things”. The meaning also includes the element, condition, structure itself, and on top of it, also expresses the relationship between those elements and the generalization of those relationships.
This word is sometimes used to express a single meaning but in many cases, it contains several meanings and context. Also used to express things and matters but it actually is not expressing the things and matters themselves, but also expressing the surrounding environment or situations, states, and elements, including the relationships between these things.
We use this word, as one of the words which can effectively express things precisely. Which means that the uniqueness of things, the individuality, is supposedly not determined only by the individual but determined equally or even more by the surrounding circumstances and the relationships. Everything is not something with a fixed uniqueness but exists in a general way with possibilities which can become anything according to different situations and mutual relationships. The form of things we perceive and recognize is a temporary form of general existence. The general term for elements and relationships which determines them is called “Ma”.

written by Norio Kajiura