Hi. I'm the engineer Kawashima.

and our company said, Art appreciation allowance There is an in-house system known as “Don’t do it.
It is said that it "supports the art appreciation (painting, music, movies, theater and dance) of staff on condition that they write a blog within two weeks after viewing with a maximum of 5,000 yen per month.

I thought it was a good system before I joined the company, but I couldn't make use of it because my timing did not match.
-- but it's only two years since I joined the company! (Laughter) I had a chance to take advantage of my art appreciation allowance.)
and this time, i went on a journey sean tan's world exhibition, nowhere to go. That's it.

a little bit about sean tan

Sean Tan is an Australian artist who has worked in a variety of fields including picture book writers, illustrators and stage directors.
This spring, for the first time in five years as a Japanese translation, he published his new picture book. semi CICADA" was published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha.

Originally, I knew Sean Tan at "Alari" (also published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in 2011) and read a few other books about him, but until recently I had forgotten just a little about him.
The book shelves were fixed and the back cover was placed in view every day, but I wondered if it was about two years ago that we opened the cover of "Alari" last.

So when I learned about the news that “semi” was going to be published on Twitter, it felt as light as “Oh, good! I’ll buy one if I see it in a bookstore.
I took it at a bookstore and turned the page, and there was no choice but to buy it anymore.
And I could no longer think of the reason why I was not going to Sean Tan's world exhibition.

(Written further, it's not an article about art appreciation, but rather a hot impression of "Semi," so I'll put that in one sentence... the vivid and colorful semi in gray will no longer be able to forget its last color until the end of long years when it was oppressed. What you leave behind is really ... Tuk Tuk!)

* Tweets by translator Sachiko Kishimoto. Related tweets are organized in thread format

Sean Tan's new picture book, CICADA. Semie works in a company mixed with humans. They have never been recognized or promoted by human beings for 17 years. Well ... This time again the theme is immigrants and other people who are "difficult". https://t.co/tvlfzjynnQ

Sachiko KISHIMOTO (@karyobinga) July 7, 2018

World Exhibition of Sean Tan

so i went to sean tan's world exhibition.)
The venue for the Tokyo exhibition is close to Nishijo, where there are offices. Chihiro Art Museum, Tokyo Yes.
(The Tokyo exhibition was held on July 28, but the Kyoto Exhibition is scheduled to be held from September 21. If you are in a suburban area!)

The exhibition was about the original picture of a picture book by Sean Tan, as well as lessons, sketches, video works and three-dimensional works. Among other things, one corner that reproduced his atelier has always been crowded with people.
On the second floor, there was also an original painting of his latest work "The Story from Inner Town" (Japanese translation provisional title), which he visited with a designer's friend on this day. They laughed at each other as soon as possible and spent extravagant time finding out what they wanted in their paintings :)

Until now, when I visited an art museum, I only looked at the finished works and did not seem to pay much attention to the production process such as study and sketching.
But at Sean Tan's exhibition, I was left with a collection of works and sketches as much or more than the original painting.
By the time a painting was completed, many sketches were lined up with details that could not be seen by just a single stroke; including the transition of dates left on the edges of the paper, it seemed like an already one story.

And when I was looking through a picture book, I realized that Sean Tan's imagination of drawing "somewhere not anywhere" had only been overwhelmed and appeared at the end of my day-to-day sketches rather than as magic.

It was a very nice exhibition.
If you've never seen it before, and there is no doubt in this world, but are somewhat nostalgic about something like that, please touch the work of Sean Tan at a bookstore:)