>Miwa Komatsu Live Painting（Vimeo）

On the day of the event HYAKKEI spoke to Komatsu about the meaning behind the work and the story of its genesis.

Interview & text: Shin Kikuchi（HYAKKEI）


The hosts of the event were Kaoru Hayashi, Founder & CEO of Digital Garage and Joichi Ito, Co-Founder of Digital Garage and guest speakers included Stweart Brand, Taro Kono (Minister of Administrative Reform), Takuya Hirai (Minister for Science & Technology Policy) and digital design expert Professor Mitsuhiro Takemura. Joining the discussion through live video link were Minister for the Environment Shinjiro Koizumi and Digital Minister of Taiwan Audrey Tang.

Q. The work you unveiled today “NEXT MANDALA ～ Home of the Soul” seems very appropriate for this event, which is focused on thinking about the future, as it projects very positive energy and is very moving. Please tell us how this work came into being.

A. I first heard about Earthshot from Digital Garage CEO Kaoru Hayashi and soon thereafter I began thinking about how I could interpret the ideas behind it through my art and my vision for the piece grew from there.

I meditate and pray every day and I realized that those practices are exactly what Earthshot is all about. That’s where I got the energy and the vision for the piece. I felt that it was my destiny to create it.

Also, my style of creation is to transform immaterial things into material forms, through the process of meditation. I chose Koyasan as the place to create the work so that I could be an environment that would allow me to be able to achieve a pure state of meditation.

－So you chose Koyasan in order to be able to create the piece using meditation?

－When I discussed the creation of the piece with Kaoru Hayashi, it was a coincidence that he is very fond of Buddhist statues and Mandalas and is very well read on the subject. He said that when he feels emotionally drained he likes to immerse himself in hot spring waters. The Chief Priest of the monastery that I stayed in, Sanboin, is also the Chief Priest of [the highly prestigious] Toji Temple in Kyoto, so I felt an even deeper connection and I felt the hand of fate even more profoundly.

Koyasan is the place founded by Kukai, and legend has it that he was guided to that location by mountain dogs (Japanese wolves). Divine spirits (in canine form) have that role (of guiding). I have painted this kind of spirit dog many times in the past, and Koyasan is protected by a spiritual barrier projected by the spirit of Kukai, so it was a very good place to meditate.

Meditation is something you do in a state of having surrendered your ego, so you have to empty yourself completely. So, if there is bad energy in the place you’re meditating in it can contaminate your energy. For this piece I meditated in Koyasan, which is an extremely pure place, and that was a very important element of tackling the process this time.

Koyasan is said to have been protected by a spiritual barrier for over 1200 years. They say that Kukai is continuing to meditate beyond the grave there. While meditating deeply within this pure natural environment I was able to communicate the theme of Earthshot [through the work].

－So meditation is an indispensible part of your creative process. Can you tell us how you get the visions while you are meditating?

－In Koyasan they meditate using “Ajikan”, the method of meditation introduced by Kukai that focuses on breathing. I felt that the act of meditation itself was connected to the whole Earthshot concept. Viewing the Earth from the sky while being on the ground. That sensation and the feeling of being connected to the heavens is definitely what Earthshot is all about, I felt.

－It is a work brimming with energy and seeing the speakers at the conference in front of it made it seem like a gateway leading to the new era that “NEXT MANDALA” symbolizes.

－Thank you. The piece features four eyes that overlap to express the eight petal peaks that are the mountains surrounding the enclave of Koyasan and, as you said, it represents a portal into this world.

Also the piece reflects elements of the Buddhist worldview, including Eight Petal Peaks, Five Colors and Indra’s Net. The five colors represent the five elements with which the cosmos is constructed, while Indra’s Net, which connects everything in existence connects the different parts of the piece and the Eight Petal Peaks of Koyasan envelop the whole. It expresses the way becoming one with the universe subsumes everything.

－So this image is something you got while meditating?

－Rather than being something I ‘got’, it’s something that I realized, which is how Zenryu Hidaka, the Chief Priest put it to me, that is to say it was like a confirmation of the answer. It urns out that the things that I have depicted up until now were connected to the Buddhist concepts like the Eight Petal Peaks, Five Colors and Indra’s Net. In retrospect, all these elements were part of my destiny.

－So NEXT MANDALA is part of the destiny that guided your creative process, your meditation and your experiences, which led you to Koyasan and led to the birth of this masterpiece?

－Yes, that’s right. Just like the work “New Chronicles”, which I painted while residing at Izumo Grand Shrine, it feels like a supernatural force has been leading me right from the beginning.
I feel that this work, “NEXT MANDALA ～ Home of the Soul”, is connected to nature and harmony with nature, this so-called Great Harmonization, through the acts of prayer and meditation. And because I felt that sense of fate or destiny it was very important for me to strongly communicate the message of a shift from Great Acceleration to Great Harmonization during the event.

<HYAKKEI Editor’s Note>
When viewing Komatsu’s work I came to the realization that viewing Earth from the skies and depicting the world in an era of Great Harmonization assists in advocating the views encapsulated by the Earthshot concept and that this not something that can be achieved through the use of technology alone, but rather requires people’s hearts and minds to be swayed.

“NEXT MANDALA – Home of the Soul” serves as a gateway to a new era where many different existences are connected and nobody is left behind. It signals the imminent advent of a new world where everyone is included and fills the viewer with a sense of positive energy and hope for the future. Miwa Komatsu continues to deliver important messages for this generation and we look forward to seeing more of her creations in the future.