The collaboration items “YUKIMASA IDA × BEAMS CULTUART” were pre-released at three BEAMS stores: “BEAMS Roppongi Hills,” “BEAMS News,” and “BEAMS Japan Kyoto,” prior to the exhibition.

I want to faithfully depict everything I’ve encountered.

– The ongoing exhibition “PANTA RHEI – For as Long as the World Turns” appears to symbolize a culmination of your artistic journey. With this in mind, could you share insights into your early inspirations as an artist? We’ve heard that the venue for this exhibition, the “Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art (Kyoto City Museum of Art),” was also a place that sparked your aspiration to become an artist.

Ida: Yes, that’s right. When I was 17, I saw the works of Maurice de Vlaminck at the exhibition “Our Landscape: 400 years of European Paintings of the State Hermitage Museum.” I was so moved that I couldn’t move from there for about 1-2 hours. His unique, bold strokes were something close to what I wanted to do, and I thought it would be fun to paint like that. His paintings had a tremendous sense of speed, as if capturing a moment in an instant. It’s been over 10 years, so I don’t remember the details, but I was greatly influenced by those aspects.

– How did you navigate the development of your distinctive style after that?

Ida: It was a period when I felt I needed to refine my technical skills, so looking back, I believe I was producing rather mundane artworks. I was just painting well, so to speak (laughs). But, while traveling in India and experiencing various things, I began to wonder what I was doing, whether I was doing something very boring. I wasn’t being recognized either. So, when I returned from the trip, I started pursuing what I really wanted to do and I did it freely, then I found joy in painting. That became the starting point that led me to where I am now.

Ida: That being said, I don’t think my style is fully established even now, and I believe being bound by nothing is what defines me. Like water, I want to adapt and change while expressing myself from now on, too.

– For example, the portrait series exhibited feels abstract to us. How do you approach realistic and abstract expressions?

Ida: While words like realistic and abstract exist, I also feel they’re confined by the imagery they carry. It’s a very simple concept, but if you can project the colors and states flowing through your mind directly onto the canvas, you can call it realistic. Contrarily, when you copy what’s in front of you, that might be an illusion. Can we call that accurate copy realistic? Such paradoxes arise.

Ida: So, what I want to do is faithfully depict everything I’ve encountered through my own filters, experiences, and time. Time especially encompasses everything. Whether such filtered visual images need to be realistic is a question. While pondering over these matters, I keep saying ‘everything is realism’.

As an artist, I believe you should do what you can.

– From what you’ve just told us about the expression of realism, it seems like your theme of “ichi-go ichi-e” is important to you. At what age did you arrive at this theme?

Ida: I think I was around 21 or 22. I mentioned earlier about the trip to India. That was my first long-term overseas trip, and I met various people there, like the homeless, guides, and others. When I looked back on the trip after returning home, the first thing that came to mind was those people. I thought I would never meet them again, even if I went back to India. If you can’t meet someone regardless of life or death, you can’t recognize their existence. So, I wanted to capture them first. While I was painting them, the phrase “ichi-go ichi-e” came to mind. It carries the sense of transience due to time, among other things.

– Is meeting people still something that inspires you?

Ida: Of course. Meeting people is indispensable. If I were the only person in the world, I wouldn’t hold exhibitions, would I? It’s because there’s a desire for others to see it and doing things like this is inherently human. That’s why I think encounters are important.

– In terms of encounters, you seem to have a very broad network of friends. When we see people pictured on your social media, we’re surprised. How do you build your relationships with people?

Ida: In this exhibition, for example, Takayuki Yamada and Yu Shirota are in charge of the audio guide. Everyone involved is really connected through art. All my friendships, except for family, are rooted in art. It’s great to be able to meet and interact with people through painting and presenting my work. By the way, the content of the audio guide is different from usual, deliberately unique, so I would like you to experience it.

– Sculptures are also displayed in the exhibition. Although you majored in oil painting at university, was there also influence from your father, Katsumi Ida, who is a sculptor?

Ida: In my childhood, my father’s studio was about a 5-minute walk from home, so I grew up in a household where I had many opportunities to interact with art. Later, when I was studying painting in my late teens, my father told me, “Sculptors can’t make a living, so become a painter.” But being a painter is tough too (laughs).

However, there was a time when I didn’t know what I should be doing, and when I tried sculpture at that time, I found it enjoyable. I had fond memories from my childhood, and that inspired me to give sculpture a proper try. Also, I’m the type of person who doesn’t like doing the same thing over and over again, so I wanted to try something new and started making sculptures.

Ida: What an artist should do, I believe, is not only what they want to do but also what they are capable of doing. Just do what you can do, steadily. By doing so, you may unexpectedly end up doing what you wanted to do in the first place. I think it’s the accumulation of such things. Sculptures are exactly that for me.

Painting is a much greater presence than myself.

– In 2017, you participated in the charity auction of the “Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation,” being the youngest participant. The encounter with Mr. DiCaprio is very famous, but how was it in reality?

Ida: That was also something facilitated through art. Yusaku Maezawa saw a painting I posted online, contacted me, and the next day, I was at a party where I got hugged by DiCaprio. I couldn’t help but think it felt like something out of a movie (laughs). Looking back, I did feel like something changed at that moment.

Ida: However, those glamorous times are rarely a part of my daily life. Most of the time, I’m holed up in the studio, concentrating on my work while experiencing ups and downs, then I go home exhausted, and the next day, I’m back in the studio again. But the time spent in that studio is precious to me. It feels like I’m also going along as the work I created goes out into the world. It’s like the paintings are pulling me along, you know? I think paintings will always be ahead of me, and I probably won’t catch up. Not that I want to catch up anyway.

– What do you mean by “paintings are ahead of me”?

Ida: Paintings outlive me, and they bring happiness to far more people than I could ever hope to. I’m here now, but this too is an illusion. Regardless of who I am as a person or whether I’m alive or not, from the perspective of the painting, it doesn’t matter. Even if I’m gone, the paintings will remain. But I have to keep on living, and I want to enjoy it as much as possible, so I’ll continue to challenge myself in various ways. There are things I want to do.

However, ultimately, what brings those things to fruition is creating something. If I focus on that, then there will be enjoyable days like the one at DiCaprio’s party waiting for me. Well, it often seems that only the most remarkable episodes are talked about, but I’m sincerely grateful to everyone I’ve ever met. All of those encounters have led to where I am today.