NAGA TSUTSUMI

STATEMENT

The clocktower in Palmerston North, the Space Needle in Seattle USA, the lighthouse on the top of Enoshima Island in Japan ... there has always been a symbol tower in the places I have lived.  

As we know, things don’t stay still forever: some buildings are renovated without keeping their original state, or replaced with a totally new structure, or removed completely.  

A few years ago, when I visited the town in Japan where I grew up, I browsed my old neighbourhood and noticed the lighthouse on the top of Enoshima Island had been replaced with a new contemporary-looking lighthouse.  

It was then I realised that the old retro looking lighthouse was actually part of my childhood landscapes - without it, something was wrong, and the scenery with which I was so familiar was gone. 

I felt a sense of being rejected by my own town, the place in Japan I thought of as home.

For this new series of work, I felt like drawing the lost lighthouse in vertical format. This idea eventually evolved into a series of tower drawings.  

They are “towers” in a broad sense, not a specific building or a structure; if it fits in vertical format, then anything can be a tower.  Besides actual structural towers, a tree can be a tower, piles of clothes can be a tower, a standing person can be a tower. 

Drawing in vertical format is one of the styles that makes me realise I am so Japanese, because it reminds me of the Japanese writing system.  Top-to-bottom hand and body movement for drawing is just like writing in Japanese, and the story and chronological timeline of a picture are more enforced than with a horizontal format picture.

​The Tower - Normal Life

This work, which started as a tree drawing, turned into a picture of co-existence of people and other creatures.  Although I don't feel much life energy in trees in my home garden, wild trees in the native
bush seem to have an intent to live and survive – in an almost creature-like way.

The Tower - Goddess of Laundry
In this work piles of dirty clothes become some sort of Goddess and angels.  Are they helping with the washing … or reassuring us it's OK not to make ourselves clean all the time?

The Tower - Modern Times
This work features an impossible machine-like tower operated by people.  The machine produces nothing, and the workers don't know what they’re operating or why.  The title “Modern Times” comes from a Charlie Chaplin movie that I saw probably 30 years ago.  Without watching it again or referencing images from the movie, I simply applied my vague memory to this work. The inspiration for the gorilla clinging to the tower comes from another classical movie: King Kong on the Empire State Building.

The Tower - Housing Development
I hate housing development, especially when it happens in my neighbourhood. I love New Zealand’s old houses, and the unique contemporary designer houses, but not mass prefabricated ones. They look so temporary and short-term, and not like something that will become part of a city’s history.  Sometimes I wonder whether the developers are even thinking about the aesthetics of city landscapes, and considering a city’s history and culture.  After completing this drawing, I noticed the shape of the tower was a bit like the lighthouse that used to be at the top of Enoshima Island in Japan.

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The Tower - The Witness
Is the giant woman standing on the top of the building going to save the city? Or is she the one destroying it? That was the question I asked myself as I created this work.

The Tower - Dream over 70 generations
I don't believe night dreams are passed down through the generations, even if we share the same DNA - yet what if tiny fragments of memories or subconscious might be left in DNA, which might affect our dreams? I'm no dream scientist or psychologist, but this is what I was thinking when creating this work. What if that small girl at the top is having the same dream that her ancient ancestor once had?