Keiko Sato; www.keikosato.nl

When I create a work, I first follow the nature, structure, quality and the meaning of materials and objects that I am dealing with. For instance, I believe that the emotional meaning of cigarette butts lies in the fact that they are a remnant of human behavior and desire. Ashes imply that something was burnt. They represent the process of disappearance and death. In the end, I use this emotional meaning and the organic structure of objects to give form to my work.

In nature everything changes and that nothing is stable. When something disappears or is destroyed, something new begins. This discovery gave me an idea of destroying objects and making something new out of them, as if creating a new landscape with pre-existing materials. In my work, the old and the new, and the end and the beginning are present at the same time. In other words, different concepts of time claim the same space. The works show and imply the direct and natural process of material changing.

Since 2001 I have been developing a project about my father who served as a kamikaze and survived in the Second World War. That is my first conscious project to find out how my personal experience actualizes as an artwork. The process of the project has been also a trip to search my identity as Japanese. As its consequent the book will be published in 2009.

Keiko Sato, 22/10/2008