An interview with Motomu Oyama

Motomu Oyama graduated from Setsu Mode Seminar. This school was founded by the legendary illustrator Setsu Nagasawa and known as its free and avant-garde sprit. There, he learned how to identify the beauty. During the so-called bubble economy period in Japan of the 1980s and the 1990s, creators who could express the atmosphere of the times were demanded. He became a pop illustration artist whose style was very different from his current one. Publishers and record companies commissioned him continuously. Broadening the range of his works from illustrations to 3D art works and even commercial objects, but he felt himself being consumed and worn out, because people were always looking for something new. He wanted to find a quiet place to reconsider his work, and he decided to leave Tokyo.

From his youth, Oyama sympathized with Taoist philosophy of "Mui Shizen" or "inaction" which expresses a state of inner serenity. When he moved to a place where wild nature remained, he came to recognize the preciousness of natural providence that goes beyond human intentions. As he got to feel himself as a part of nature, he even could accept the snakes in the forest, which he was scared of at first. These changes were naturally reflected in his works. Previously,he considered the iron's nature to rust as a negative element, but once he began to see a sense of impermanence and beauty in it, it was naturally adopted into his work.

An object titled “Ite Cho” ( Frozen Butterfly ) was created then. "Ite Cho" is a butterfly that survives until winter, and becomes motionless as if it is frozen. When we shed light on one thin wing made of rusted iron, its shadow forms the other wing to be completed. This work deeply represents his view that "death is a part of life."

"'Frozen Butterfly' is a very personal piece that reflects myself at the time. The way iron quietly rusts and slowly decays overlaps with the being of frozen butterfly in my mind." Oyama says about this work.

The works currently he makes are daily tools : tea ware, flower vases and lighting covered in rust and coated with beeswax, but the same theme such as pathos and impermanence of “Frozen Butterfly” is immanent in his iron tools. Acceptance to the laws of nature and compassion for every existence. These are what he has tried to express with iron in his own way.

"I finally accepted my own work recently," he said. The voice was very calm.