Eriko Kaniwa
Eriko Kaniwa is a Tokyo-based digital artist who creates digital artworks based on her unique philosophy. After a period of TV programme production and social venture innovation, Kaniwa founded Sensegraphia in 2014, aiming to advocate a philosophy and creative practice that reconstructs the essential unity of people and nature through fine art. Also in 2014, she began developing a workshop programme to apply the potential of photography and digital imagery to aesthetics education, presenting the programme at domestic graduate schools, foreign companies, international conferences and think-tank business schools, where it received high acclaim. She also spent two years exploring Japanese symbols of nature worship, represented by the so-called 'eight million gods' of Shintoism, examining how ancient Japanese perceived the natural environment and symbolized it as an object of prayer. She traveled to more than 20 locations throughout Japan, photographing torii gates built into the water, sacred married rocks, World Heritage Sites and other spiritual landscapes, and these images, along with her text, are included in her book "JOKEI - Symbols of Nature Worship, Sacred places in Japan". After the difficulties of the global pandemic of the last few years, Kanawa is currently working on a new theme. She is further learning and experimenting with the ways in which beings inhabit invisible dimensions that are continuous with visible reality, how they represent microscopic microbiological forms, and how these images bring a sense of oneness with nature to our perception.
Can you tell us about your artistic journey and what inspired you to pursue a career in the arts?
I am a self-taught digital artist with a background in photography and digital imaging. In the past, I had an identity crisis at a milestone in my life when I started taking macro shots of flowers and plants in my garden, and through the lens, I became fascinated by the exquisite system of forms formed by nature and the universe. Since then I have made it a habit to look at every event as a form, at a high level of abstraction.
As you can see on my website, the continuous world of animate and inanimate, three-dimensional and four-dimensional, visible and invisible, the reality in which we live today, allows for transcendental analogies between the macro and the micro. And this, I believe, is the essence of 'abstraction', and it is my job to represent it.
However, to be honest, I have never thought of becoming an 'artist'. The themes I try to express change from time to time and the medium is not consistent, whether it is photography or digital art. I started to develop a relationship with galleries when I started submitting my own work to a number of awards and winning high rankings. Another milestone was working with art-related media and major magazines such as GQ and Vogue. I am currently studying art at the University of the Arts and am considering postgraduate studies. Balancing production, studying, and caring for a family is quite a challenge for me, but I am not young anymore and I want to be bold with the time I have left in my life.
Your work displays a unique style. How would you describe your artistic style, and what influences have shaped it?
In my personal opinion, the most distinctive feature of my expression is still the fusion of abstract and figurative expression through digital processing. I think this tendency has become particularly strong recently. During the pandemic period, I was thinking so much about the dependency between humans and invisible microbial creatures like viruses. This led me to create the series "Neo Primitive Life" and "Parasite", which are about fictional micro-organisms. I have a strong desire to pursue an invisible world that is continuous with the world we live in. The ultimate goal is to be able to recognize that we are part of nature in an intersubjective way. Although it is a very difficult task.
Many artists draw inspiration from their surroundings. What places, experiences, or people have had the most significant impact on your art?
I think I am a voracious reader and I am often inspired by works related to biology, aesthetics, and philosophy. Visually, I am still often inspired by surrealist works such as those by Hans Vermeer and Max Ernst, but I am also influenced by ink and Japanese painting. I am moved when I encounter works of art, whether famous or unknown, that express my ideas. Recently, I saw an AI-generated abstract painting, and I found it refreshing to see the unique abstract thinking of AI, which seeks to exaggerate the mathematics of the natural world while completely eliminating the concept of space. While I doubt that artists should leave the entire creative process to AI, I believe it is acceptable to use AI only as part of the creative process.
Your recent work has attracted a lot of attention and critical acclaim. Can you tell us about the creative process behind your latest work?
The most recent works in the series are “MindScape”, which is about my personal mental landscape, and “Organic Universe”, which seeks an analogy between the micro-world and the extreme visual universe. Both series were created through conversations with AI and are prototypes in the process of creating my own expressive language.
For the past two years, I have been busy writing my undergraduate thesis, which has made it very difficult to continue my production activities. In graduate school, I hope to be able to combine logical thinking with visual expression.
Collaboration is a common theme in the art world. Have you had any memorable collaborative experiences, and how do they influence your artistic approach?
I have never collaborated with other artists. I would like to do it in the future, but I am a very particular person, so it might be a bit difficult. However, I am always open to interesting suggestions. I have made a very short video piece using my own still work and music, which was a very enjoyable process.
Are there any particular themes or messages you aim to convey through your art?
In my thesis at university, I took up a body of work called BRAHMAN, which the post-war Japanese avant-garde artist Tatsuo Ikeda proclaimed to be a visual mythological system. The works are geometric abstractions that exclude the humanoid god, but at the same time depict very graphic organic motifs such as visceral organs in response to astrophysics, which I found very stimulating.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, I feel that there is a continuous three-dimensional world that we believe to be 'real' and visible to the eye, and I believe that it is the job of the artist to represent this world. I will continue to express myself according to this concept, whether in photography or digital art.
-Beyond Sight Aesthetic Insight
This is my artistic statement.
The art world has undergone significant changes, particularly in the digital age. How has technology influenced your work and the way you connect with your audience?
We are now at the point where we are seriously considering how to deal with artificial intelligence, and Adobe's integration of AI generation into its applications as a digital editing tool is a milestone. This trend is not going to stop and it is time to redefine how we perceive reality and fiction in images, individually.
I myself have begun to experiment with incorporating AI conversations into my productions, but I don't leave everything to it. First, there is my image. Then I try hundreds of prompt words and combinations to get an image that is better than what I want. In terms of efficiency, this has hardly helped at all.
But I think that's because I'm still a beginner. Once I have a certain image, I take it to a regular digital editor and repeat the trial-and-error process. The attitude that the initiative is always ours also influences the choice and combination of prompts, so building conversations with AI may become an important part of the production process in the future. But this is just my personal case.
Many emerging artists look up to established talents like yourself. What advice would you offer to aspiring artists trying to make a name for themselves in the industry?
I am still able to seek advice from senior members of the industry, but I am not yet in a position to give it. However, there are people in the industry who will try to exploit artists, so I would urge you to think carefully about how you want to promote your work. And I think you have to be brave enough to take the opportunity and move forward. I think it is important not to be afraid of being different from the norm.
