Jerwood Contemporary Panters (Jerwood Space, London, UK)

I am interested in portraits/faces because I am surrounded by them everyday.
Every day life is filled with portraits on the media such as newspapers and TV programmes.

A portrait in the media can be special to those who recognise the person, however to some they will remain an unknown. When an audience looks at portraits, the audience has an interest in who is depicted in it.
However I am not interested in drawing someone special.

Recently, I am interested in drawing someone whom no one knows.
My aim is that the audience can be reminded of someone they know when they look at my work.

The person they see depends on who is viewing my art.
To draw "someone who we don't know / someone who might be someone special" is my interest. This is why my works are named "Imaginary portrait."

My work is also about stereotypes and prejudices to people.
I am really interested in people's appearance because I really love to imagine and guess people's history and personality through their appearance.
I usually draw imaginary people rather than specific people because I have learned from many cases that we can never judge a person by his or her appearance. I am curious about what sorts of things can make a person be recognized/ differentiated from others. E.g. voice, shape, fashion style...
People look very different, there are many types of skin, hair and eye colours. People also dress very different from each other.
In my work, I would like to explore these differences.

In order to find what the most important thing to differentiate people is, I create a lot of drawings. Through these drawings which were inspired by the public, I have made my "Imaginary portrait series."