Updates from picture-book artist
text: Yoshio Machida
I had a chance to talk with a buyer from the book store, about the difference between the art book and the picture book. When you read art-book, you might tend to focus on secondary information, which is about its popularity, or its theory. On the other hand, in case with picture-book, the reader is easily getting onto primary information “of itself ”, which comes visually from what is on the pages. Although we know there is big difference in major target of each book (one for grown ups, the other for children ), it seems that even grow ups reading a picture book unintentionally put priority to the primary information “of itself” than to the secondary information.
Baek Heena’s “ Amedama (translated by Yoshifumi Hasegawa )” is J apanese translation from her “Magic Candies “, originally published in Korean. Baek studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts.“ Fuwafuwagumo Cloud Bread ”making her debut, was rendered by CG, but since then, her books as “The Bath Fairy”, “The Strange Mum”, and “ Amedama ” have been employing the method of editing photos of clay puppets, and georamas. After woking with clay puppets, “ delicacy ” has been known as the signature of her works. Not to mention the details of georamas and the settings of each scenes, you would gasp at the expressions shown on puppet’s face, elaborated by her exceptional, virtuosic skills of modeling and coloring puppets. Each photos of creatures and settings with such details, delude you into visions of real moving objects. This kind of effect, which is shared with the artists from hyper realism as Ron Mueck, and Patricia Piccinini successfully, and truthfully warms our heart without any distraction on narratives.
Her eminent talent of cuts, and perspectives in shots, will impress you and it is awesome to see these highly demanding technique is properly fit into the narrative. You can say visions of her works are common with those of Jan Švankmajer’s, Jiří Barta’s, Russian puppet animators’, and “Thomas the Tank Engine”, which mix realities with illusions.
In the story, amedama (candies), conjure up strange experiences in a boy’s every day life. This is the story lying at the core with much importance , and the visuals appearing on the pages just support development of the story. But the primary information “of itself”, is brought by visuals, so the crucial effect is to be cast over the story by visuals. In this context, we can say this book has conceived an imperishable inside “of itself”, keeping a certain distance from its secondary information.
translated by Kazuki Takami (intoxicate)
