夏目らん - Emotions are invisible, aren't they?

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Ran is an artist who carries with her a special ability one that allows you to see into the seat of her soul. Uncertain in some regards the artists personality could be seen to be in flux. Yet the self-awareness to channel these perceptions into art, intelligent, self-aware, pragmatic, and introverted. The work created by this artist shows us that what we perceive on the surface is hardly ever the truth.

Identity, the mere idea of this has in recent years become a hot topic of debate in all sectors whether we are talking about gender, sex or even race in 2021 it seems these somewhat immutable characteristics have become a key talking point. The talking points more than often come from people who don’t understand or possess the characteristics in question.

Something we are told time and time again is that we can’t understand someone else without living their experience. This is true but we can empathise and while we can’t understand the pain that any one other individual has endured. We can understand what it means to be in pain and in turn feel for our fellow human no matter what experience they have had.

It is almost impossible to think of a suffering more than feeling as if you are in the wrong flesh. For us that don’t have this experience we can empathise, but feelings are next too impossible to truly express. In this sense the visual art form is one that can give us a window into the soul of a person, Rans work lays this bare for us to see if you have the keen eye to perceive it.

The below interview is with a remarkable individual whose everyday experience is unlike that of most people. However, hers is a voice that should be heard so that hopefully others in her position can feel less alone. The work itself features some of the most transcendent visualisations of references relevant to emotional state and even some biblical. For example, angels are often now depicted as female however in the past the possessed more male traits. The truth is they are genderless, these themes and more are explored in 夏目らん artwork.

https://mybae.io/gallery/DYN/0x12297b0753a092d2013713262658c3e338ea38cb37213ec6fdd5a89ba2a6bf41

Please see below the Japanese interview to find the English translation.

あなたの名前を教えてください。

夏目らんです。

あなたの作品の主な要因は何ですか？

基本的に自分の内側から湧き出てくる感情です。

感情って基本的には目に見えないじゃないですか。

それを言葉ではなく視覚として伝えたいと思っています。

今後は自分の中だけではなく外にも目を向けていきたいと考えています。

あなたの作品には、痛みや苦しみを抱えた人物が多く登場しますが、それはなぜですか？

痛みや苦しみは一見ネガティヴですが、人間が成長する上で必要不可欠な要素であり

誰かが苦しい時に前を向こうなどのメッセージよりも、大丈夫だと安心出来るような、その感情に寄り添えるものを作りたいと思っています。

私自身苦しい時はポジティブなメッセージよりネガティヴな要素の強いものに救われてきたので、そういった作品が多いです。

あなたの作品における天使の意味は何ですか？

私の作品に出てく人物は女性的、ですが特別な理由が無い限り性別は特に設定していません。

天使に性別は無いと言われているので、その象徴をわかりやすくしたものでもあります。

みなさんなんの疑いもなく、女性だと思うはずなんですけど

目に見えるものが全てではないという意味もあります。

正式なトレーニングを受けていますか？

誰かから技術を教えてもらったことは無いので独学です。

中学生の頃、絵の描き方やphotoshopの使い方など技法書を読み漁るのが趣味でした。

学校へ行かず引きこもって絵を描いていた時期が今に繋がっていると思っています。

このシリーズの一環として発売される作品の中で、注目したい作品はありますか？

全て私が生きてきた上で感じたことを形にした物なので選ぶのが難しいですが、強いて言えば自浄というタイトルです。

私の人生の中で特に苦しい時に描いたもので、制作に一ヶ月ほどかかりました。

言葉に形容できないほどの苦しさと、水銀のように触れられない毒性の強いものを自ら排泄し

自分の力で浄化する。

なのでタイトルが『自浄』です。

そして今私が生きているということがこの作品が単にネガティヴなものではなく、ポジティブなものでもあると考えています。

新しい自分に生まれ変わった作品でもあるので、思い入れ深いです。

あなたの創造的なプロセスは何ですか？

みなさん生きていく上で辛いとか悲しいとか漠然と感じることはあると思いますが

その感情を深掘りしていく感じです。

何故悲しいのか何故辛いのかなど、言葉として頭に浮かぶことが多いです。

そこから木の根のように深く掘り下げて行きます。

なので浮かんだ言葉がそのままタイトルになることも多いです。

どのようにして作品を作っていますか？例えば、デジタルなのか、物理的なものをスキャンしているのか。

工程は基本的に全てデジタルです。

大まかにラフを描いてから進めていきます。

行き当たりばったりなこともあります。

他に何か追加したいことはありますか？

私の作るものが皆さんの救いや癒しになり、その声が私の生きる糧となる。

愛に溢れた世界で生きていきたいです。

これからもよろしくお願いします。

https://mybae.io/gallery/DYN/0xcdd026a6c4e71d5f025306d87cfaaea6ecb0507eaeb762734325d3502c1a4e4e

1. What is your name?

My name is Ran Natsume.

2. What are the main factors behind your work?

Basically, it’s the emotions that come from inside of me.

Basically, emotions are invisible, aren’t they?

I want to convey them visually, not with words.

In the future, I would like to look not only inside myself, but also outside.

3. Why do you have so many characters in your works who are in pain and suffering?

Pain and suffering may seem negative at first glance, but they are essential elements for human growth.

I would like to create something that can accompany those emotions and reassure people that everything will be okay, rather than a message to look forward to when someone is in pain.

When I’m in pain, I’ve been helped more by things with strong negative elements than positive messages, so I tend to create works like that.

4. What is the meaning of angels in your work?

The characters in my works are feminine, but I don’t set gender unless there is a specific reason.

It is said that angels have no gender, so I try to make the symbolism easy to understand.

I’m sure you all think they are female, without any doubt.

It also means that what you see is not everything.

5. Do you have any formal training?

I’m self-taught, as I’ve never been taught a technique by anyone.

When I was in junior high school, my hobby was reading technique books on how to draw pictures and how to use photoshop.

I think that the time I spent drawing and staying indoors instead of going to school has led me to where I am today.

6. Are there any works that you would like to focus on that will be released as part of this series?

It’s hard to choose, because they are all based on what I’ve felt in my life, but if I had to choose, I would say the title “Self Purification.

I drew it during a particularly difficult time in my life, and it took me about a month to create.

It took me about a month to make this painting. It is about the pain that cannot be described in words, and about excreting something like mercury, which is highly toxic and cannot be touched.

I will purify myself by my own power.

That’s why the title is “self-purification”.

And the fact that I am alive now makes me think that this work is not just negative, but also positive.

It is also a work of rebirth into a new me, so I am very attached to it.

7. What is your creative process?

I think we all have vague feelings of pain or sadness in our lives.

It’s like digging deeper into those feelings.

I often think of why I am sad or why it is painful.

From there, I dig deeper like the roots of a tree.

So the word that comes to mind often becomes the title.

8. How do you create your works? For example, is it digital or do you scan physical objects?

The process is basically all digital.