Panel eight - Selected by Suzuka TANAKA

The theme of this year's postcard exhibition is "connections". And the title of this artwork is “vitality". What springs to mind when you hear the word  “connections"? I think that now many people may think of words that make them aware of the connections between people.

Artist FUJIMOTO Sora said that connecting with people led her to the title of "vitality" because it is a way of life and one of the vital forces. For the artist, "connections" refers to the spirit of connecting and supporting people. In this artwork, multiple connected hands with different nail colors and arm lengths are depicted.

Looking at these hands in this artwork, I felt an invisible spiritual connection and unity between humans. The effects of COVID-19 have caused the world to be in a difficult situation now. However I felt a mental connection between humans. As the title suggests, this is a work that is appropriate in the current state of COVID-19, where human connections support life.

This work contains various illustrations that have nothing in common, such as dogs, shirts, and wine. But, Please look closely. You can see related things such as wine and grapes, nails and hammers.

For the artist, "connection" is a useful means to help people communicate and understand one another. Not just language, images are necessary for expression. This work "Association" was created in this way.

The first thing that was made when creating this work was a collection of ideas and related topics that the artist associated with the theme of "connection" called a mind-map, expressing the connections of the artist's brain.

The artist, Lucy said that the intention of making this work was to convey that words are naturally connected in the brain. In other words, even in this work that looks disjointed at first glance, words are connected one by one, if you look closely.