Kawai’s works are adorned with the beauty of time, and at the same moment, a story comes into being.
In the past, pictorial expression was a technique in service of reproducing narratives—spirits once worshipped, the miracles of saints, the deeds of heroic figures in history. In this sense, the history of painting is the history of reproduction, though at times the painter’s expression has gone beyond mere imitation, renewing the very scenery of the world.
Yet since the modern era, art has shifted toward the expression of individual life, and the role of narrative has been gradually handed over to cinema and literature. Kawai’s endeavor, therefore, is to once again engage with this fading relationship between story and painting. In an age where gods and faith have receded from everyday life, Kawai supplements the motifs of narrative with his own imagination.
“Human beings live with contradictions, or with problems that admit no answer. By creating an original hero, I wish to pursue the humorous nature of humanity—who bear a desire for battle, and at the same time, a tenderness toward peace,” says Kawai.
What emerges from this pursuit are works that crystallize a free and innocent aesthetic value, embodied in heroes of transformation, robots, and magic. Thus, what he creates are always illustrations without text—classical in technique, yet speaking of stories of the present age.