梦栖之所—— 图像的替身与精神容器

 

空间站很荣幸的宣布将于2025年8月16日举办“梦栖之所”日本艺术家赤木范陆个展。本次展览将呈现赤木范陆运用蜂蜡绘画技法创作的近四十幅代表作。赤木范陆出生于1961年，成长于日本昭和时代——一个文化活跃、社会剧烈变化的年代。从这样的背景中走出的艺术家，自然具备一种深植于文化土壤的敏锐性。他并不将自己局限在某一种技法或传统中，而是将媒材、图像、空间与观看本身，作为思考与创作的起点。

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蜡画是一种使用加热的蜂蜡与颜料混合后作画的古老艺术形式。技法展现出温润、厚重的质感，更有极强的保存性。在古代，蜂蜡被用来绘制肖像、祭祀图像、宗教空间中的装饰，以抵抗时间的腐蚀、封存记忆与情感。可以使图像在时间中停驻。可以说蜡画不仅是图像的显现方式，也是一种对“形象永恒”的冥想性回应，某种意义上说，它所保存的并不是视觉再现的表象，而是对生命、风景、精神气质的“图像替身”。

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图像不仅仅是自然的再现，更是情感、哲思与文化认同的寄托。在《蜡山水》系列作品中，我们看不到传统山水画的空间透视或理性构图，那些被称作“表面秩序”的规则在这里被抛在一边。画面不依赖清晰的远近关系，而是让图像自由流动、生长。山石、云气、水纹仿佛从画面深处慢慢浮现出来，又在蜡的覆盖中隐去，显得模糊，却有一种奇异的真实感。山不再是被观测的对象，而成为观看的媒介本身；水不再流向远方，而在画面中循环折返。

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在作品《母子图》中，艺术家通过层层叠加的蜡质与柔和的色调，营造出一种既模糊又亲密的视觉氛围。母子之间的形象不是具体的个体肖像，而是一种可以唤起情感共鸣的图像，是梦的片段、记忆的回声、人类最基本情感的一种栖居方式。在《玻璃静物》系列中赤木范陆巧妙地运用了蜂蜡与岩彩两种历史悠久的绘画媒介。玻璃作为一种视觉上透明、触觉上坚硬易碎的材料，也常常象征着时间的易逝与感知的脆弱。艺术家借助蜂蜡的包覆性和岩彩的颗粒质感，重建视觉的“透明性”使画面既显厚重，又透出轻盈浮动的幻象感。

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赤木范陆的绘画，还提出了一个耐人寻味的空间逻辑。他不将画布视为纯粹的二维平面，也不接受传统透视法所建立的“观看中心”。在他的理解中，绘画的空间结构不是由画家建构出来的，而是由材料、支撑体、图像之间的关系、观者的注视共同生成的。图像在哪里出现、空间在哪里打开，不是预设好的，是要依赖观看时的感知“激活”。每一幅画都不是静止的，而是在你凝视它的那一刻才真正“开始”。

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在当代视觉文化中，图像的生产与消费几乎达到一种饱和的极限。赤木范陆的创作，并不急于向观者传递某种直接的信息。他的画面始终带有一种模糊性、延迟性，仿佛图像就在眼前，却无法被真正“抵达”。山水、人物、器物游离于具象与抽象之间，诱发的不只是“看见什么”的思考，更是“如何看”“为何看”的重新追问。

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The Dwelling of Dreams — Image as Surrogate and Vessel of Spirit

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Space Station is honored to present The Dwelling of Dreams, a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Akagi Nonimichi, opening on August 16, 2025. The exhibition will feature nearly forty representative works created using the ancient technique of encaustic painting. Born in 1961 and raised during Japan’s Shōwa era—a period marked by vibrant cultural activity and dramatic societal transformation—Akagi possesses a sensitivity deeply rooted in cultural tradition. Rather than confining himself to a single technique or lineage, he approaches materials, images, space, and the act of viewing as the starting points for thought and creation.

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Encaustic painting, an ancient technique that mixes heated beeswax with pigments, is known for its warm, dense texture and exceptional longevity. Historically, beeswax was used in portraits, votive images, and religious decorations to resist the erosion of time and to preserve memory and emotion. It allows images to momentarily resist time. Thus, encaustic painting is not merely a method of visual representation, but a meditative response to the desire for the image’s permanence. What it preserves is not just surface appearance, but a surrogate for life, landscape, and spiritual temperament.

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For Akagi, the image is not simply a representation of nature—it is a vessel of emotion, philosophy, and cultural identity. In his Encaustic Landscapes series, we find no trace of traditional landscape perspective or rational composition. The so-called “surface order” has been discarded. Instead, the image is allowed to flow and grow freely. Rocks, clouds, and ripples seem to emerge slowly from the depths of the canvas, then recede again under layers of wax—hazy, yet possessing a strange sense of reality. The mountain is no longer an object of observation, but becomes a medium through which one sees; water no longer flows into the distance, but loops and returns within the picture.

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In Mother and Child, Akagi constructs an atmosphere that is both ambiguous and intimate through layered wax and soft color tones. The figures are not specific portraits, but emotionally resonant images—fragments of dreams, echoes of memory, and dwellings for humanity’s most fundamental emotions. In the Glass Still Life series, Akagi skillfully combines beeswax with mineral pigments—two historically rich media. Glass, visually transparent yet fragile to the touch, often symbolizes the fleeting nature of time and the fragility of perception. Through the enveloping quality of wax and the grainy texture of mineral pigments, he reconstructs a new sense of visual “transparency,” rendering the image both weighty and imbued with an ethereal lightness.

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Akagi’s paintings also raise a compelling spatial proposition. He does not treat the canvas as a flat surface, nor does he accept the fixed perspective of classical pictorial space. For him, pictorial structure is not built solely by the artist but emerges from the dynamic relationship between material, support, image, and the viewer’s gaze. Where the image appears—where the space unfolds—is not predetermined, but must be “activated” through perception. Each painting is not static, but only truly begins at the moment you behold it.

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In today’s visual culture—oversaturated by image production and consumption—Akagi’s work resists immediacy and straightforward interpretation. His paintings remain intentionally ambiguous and deferred, as if the image were just within reach yet perpetually elusive. Mountains, figures, and objects drift between figuration and abstraction, prompting not only the question of what is seen, but a deeper inquiry into how and why we see.