Art existed before the word art was coined.
The first humans appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago,
and arrived in the Japanese archipelago about 38,000 years ago.
They created what would later be called art such as
paleolithic cave paintings, statues of the mother goddess,
and Jomon earthenware and clay figurines.
They decorated and patterned even practical objects.
I have produced and exhibited paintings and
sculptures such as“ Photo Panting・
Pattern Painting,” in which patterns were
heaped up or carved on top of paintings that
look like pictures drawn from photographs, and
“Earthenware Monsters,” animals that inhabited
the Japanese archipelago during the Jomon period
and wore the patterns of Jomon earthenware
and clay figures and became monsters
by burning over open fires
as they did in the Jomon period. ーKen MATSUYAMA