utte booklet vol.

LIVE YOUR LIFE(IF YOU LIKE IT)

Yusuke Hirata, an artist,

uttelier interview
Live Your Life (if you like it)
March 2009
Live Your Life (if you like it) 2
This booklet is an interview originally
appeared in the website “utte” – creative
artworks shop – in which utte staff interview
and take photos, and write articles, 2,000 –
2,500 words in Japanese, to spread views of
art in their lives.

‘Live Your Life (if you like it)’is an interview

held in March, 2009 with Mr. Yusuke Hirata.
He expresses his vision, his view of the
world openly.
Let’ enjoy these words and comments. We
are very happy to hear your comments
directly to us.

Comments to: utte@utte.co.jp

Yoshifumi Go, a staff of utte

Sakurako Murayama, a staff of utte

Yusuke Hirata website of utte

Live Your Life (if you like it) 3
 http://www.utte.co.jp/joomla/content/view/816/54/
Yusuke Hirata website
http://www.flexible-art.com/

Yusuke Hirata / an artist, a painter

Self Introduction

I have been painting from early childhood,

but even so I didn't step the ladder of ‘art
courses’ such as art schools and educational
courses.
I don’t care a title as an artist, its
reputation, the hierarchy in the artist society.
‘Cause I re-started to unload my creative
overstock though I surely took a long way around.
“You will live your life if you like it”.
At times in fantasy, another time in mysterious,
and then in hardboiled, I live in dramatic worlds to
be free from restraint. That is my “flexible-art
world.”

Carrier
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Born in 1977.
Started graphical design for liner notes of CDs and
poster design from 2000 with a pen tablet.
Re-started oil-painting since 2005 with
paintbrushes.
First solo exhibition in 2009, “Bonjour Choc!” at Art
Marché Kanda in Tokyo.
occasionally plays a saxophone.

Yusuke Hirata utte website

http://www.utte.co.jp/joomla/content/view/816/54/

utte website
www.utte.co.jp

Yusuke Hirata website

http://www.flexible-art.com/

Live Your Life (if you like it) 5

LIVE YOUR LIFE (IF YOU LIKE IT)

“No wonder that such a man as he is

coming here in the Earth Garden event,” I
murmured.

utte, a creative artwork website shop,

participated in the Earth Garden and sold
creators’ artworks. As one of the staff of
utte I was tired of standing in the booth and
roamed in the hall. I looked “such a man” in
the entrance gate. The silhouette was tall and
thin. From a black hat, long hair dropped
down like a series of cascades, beard grew neatly,
and the body came out. His legs were tightened
by lace up boots. Well, it was just like him.

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The Earth Garden was the event that sold
handmade and craft works in order to
promote the protection of the earth environment
and ecological life. Though its objective was highly
important but the general public had an image as
such the event mainly attracted strange people.
Then “such a person” came and I also acted like
the general public and said “such a person.”

Astonishingly, he was walking to the utte

booth on the straight line.

As a matter of fact, he was a creator, Mr.

Yusuke Hirata, to whom utte* had asked to
register as a creator. We had an interview
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time on other day in the utte office in
Akihabara, Tokyo.

【 Re-start from “Bread, 　 crawfish 　 and

cabaret” 】

”I re-started painting in 2006” , he said with

his “the shortest hair” in his life ever he
insisted.

*utte is a web shop selling creative artworks created by the

registered creators.

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 In his artwork “Bread, Crawfish and
Cabaret”, his whole life until 2005 had been
loaded. He firmly painted his birth, his life
style, everyday life into the canvas. Bread
might represent his daily life and earnings,
crawfish might represent his fishing
experience as a boy in Koishikawa Park, and
cabaret might represent adults of a man
and a woman loving each other. Hum, love
and marriage was like a cabaret, I
murmured. Indeed at cabaret popular girls
moved to table to table with her charm and
men wanted to keep on her with his
craziness. Cabaret was very similar to love
affair.

He painted it without any interest of going

into public or sales, though it was not just a
hobby. There was a unique world view and
expression. Why he re-started painting?

“Cause I re-started to unload my creative

overstock in my atelier in the head”
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Motif to paint overflew from his stock, and then
he had to do “stock clearance.” He had to dispose
overflow motif with his hand-painting.

Until he re-started hand-painting, he had painted

pictures by an electric pen. It was a pen-tablet.
With the device, he produced many album jacket
designs of CDs since 2000. Individual record levels
requested and he painted design by a personal
computer and a pen tablet. He disliked “too neat
lines” to drew digitally, and made intentionally

Live Your Life (if you like it) 10

vague lines seeking for analogue taste. That was
his way of musical painting expression.

But using pen tablet was too time-consuming to

dispose his overstock motif. He had to use his
hands for painting. So, He got paintbrushes again.

【 What he saw behind the flower】

He had been painted since his childhood. Even he
was a bad student who skipped class the art club
at the high school was his favorite.
One day there was an assignment in the club,
“sketch of a flower”. Painting plants as a still life
was the ABC or an introductory for beginners.
Some students paint miniatures and others
imaginary ones. There was a common thing in
their paintings. That was, every student looked
and painted the flower from the front. Even a bit
different in slant angles, they were same as
looking the front side. But Mr. Hirata did not.

He painted it from the behind.

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His back-side flower painting was highly praised
by the teacher and sent to an exhibition. It won
and advanced to competitions in the domestic and
was sent to an exhibition in Germany overseas.
The painting had never come back but a
certificate was delivered.

This event changed his painting view – no, his

world view itself. Let’s change the vision. By
changing its view made him reach to the unique
picture world. When he looked the world from ants
view, he was expected to have a whole different
vision, and he did.

【 unexpected composition and Slam Dunk 】

Let’s look at the lady on the artwork “Mary.” Let
the lady look you. You can see ants in the eye.

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There was an unexpected encounter.

I am overwhelmed by the eye power with heavy

mascara. I see the ants spilling on the blink. But
except the eye part, the painting was very
moderate. The skin, the hair, the lips, the tin …
the whole canvas was calmly painted by yellow
streams, until the moderation changed suddenly
in the eye part. It was like a rock effect when
listeners of Jazz or Rock performance encountered
the modulation in the melody.

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 Modulate touch and unexpected combination. It
might be a point to describe Hirata vision.
Incidentally I heard he loved Slam Dunk, a popular
Japanese comic story about high school basket
players. I noticed this was not an incident but
coincident. In this all time comic masterpiece,
there were so many unique compositions of
players’ move and the play scenes. He might be
influenced by the composition.

I may add that there is an episode of “Sakuragi

Vision” at the debut game for Sakuragi Hanamichi,
the leading character. His vision became very
narrow because he got so tense at his first game.

Hirata vision is different from Sakuragi’s narrow

one but his view is open to the human world and
composes it with the ant view.

【 You will live your life if you like it】

The artwork “Suture of Love” is a birth of a bold
imagination.

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A rooster and Oppai (boobs). How is surrealistic!
You can say that the yolk and boobs are tempting.
Wait, the rooster and the boobs mean man and
woman’s union? You can say that a fertile egg
might be a child. You can read anything from it but
do not a red string between the cage and the
rooster. You may see the union of parent child
relationship, and the ego of parent to children…
what is the union anyway? Now, you will be in the
Hirata vision world!

For some reason, he didn't step the ladder of

‘art courses’ such as art schools and educational
courses.
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He does not care a title as an artist, its
reputation, the hierarchy in the artist society.
‘Cause he re-started to unload my creative
overstock though he a bit took a long way around.

“You will live your life if you like it”

He said with Hirata vision.

March 10, 2009

Words: Yoshifumi Go
Photos: Sakurako Murayama

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