The work belongs to the series The Correct Focus. Similar but not the same as the Lessons for Restoration series, the fabrics used are mainly made in Turkey. Although the fabrics are produced in different places, the series shares the same concept as Lessons for Restoration in that it explores the contrast between a perspectival pictorial space and a pre-modern non-perspectival pictorial space, and addresses the idea that once you have learnt something, you cannot return to the state before you learnt it.

Perspective was established in northern Italy during the Renaissance in the 15th century, but did not reach Japan until the 19th century. Before that time, Japanese painters composed their pictorial spaces using the “atrium stall’: the blown-off roof Yamato-e painting technique, an eye that grasped space not through perspective but from a flat perspective. As Japan underwent modernisation, our visual perception evolved to embrace perspective. Once we acquire this new way of seeing, it becomes ingrained, making it challenging to revert to our previous perception.

This work series aims to create a ‘perspective pictorial space’ and an ‘atrium-stall-like flat pictorial space’ on the same plane. If you try to see the perspective space, the flat space will get in the way, and vice versa. Which is right and which is incorrect? The work is not only a question of pictorial space but also a metaphor for the cultural background brought about by Japan’s modernisation.

As for the piece featuring the girl, I traced the outline of her figure and shifted it to the left, creating the work by imagining something akin to the human soul. Beyond the issue of perspective, this piece was created whilst reflecting on what exactly we humans are looking at in our daily lives.