Japan pilgrimage, sacred perception & kōans
The prōject
The current project begins with a journey to Japan, starting with a pilgrimage on the Kumano Kodo in October 2026. The journey will be, to me, a field of artistic research into how pilgrimage and ritual can make a dimension of the sacred perceptible through the experience of walking.
The project has a strong reference to Zen and to the practice of studying kōans; it is not, however, intended to represent Japan, illustrate Zen or collect an unfamiliar visual repertoire. It is also not a religious project or a self-discovery pilgrimage.
The goal of this research is to place my existing practice, strongly shaped by ex-voto painting, landscapes, frontal compositions, and transformation of familiar objects and images, under pressure through a different set of practices and bodily experience of a place.
Alongside the field research, I am developing a group of paintings in dialogue with the unresolved structure of kōans. They focus on the process of attention, encounter, and transformation.
Wōrks and studies before the journey
Starting pōints
Before the journey, the project grows out of concerns already present in my practice.
- Ex-voto painting themes and aesthetics are important to me because they connect an image to an experience or a request.
- Landscapes allow me to work with the relation between a place and the image made from it.
- Frontal compositions give the image a direct and concentrated structure.
- The transformation of familiar objects and images allows me to move between recognition and uncertainty.
The developing kōan paintings come from this field of references and questions.
I am interested in how a work can hold a subject without resolving its meaning. The works may begin with something ordinary, or with the kōan mythology in mind, but they do not need to explain it or turn it into a symbol.
Works made before the journey are the point from which I will leave, and I expect the journey to confirm, complicate, or change them.
Cōnversations and exchange
As part of this project, I am looking to meet people and visit places whose work or knowledge can help me understand the contexts I will encounter in Japan. I am interested in conversations with artists, curators, researchers, translators, guides, and people connected to the pilgrimage.
If you would like to speak about the project, please contact me.