Acrylic on board

36.5 × 51.5 cm. 14 3/8 × 20 1/4 in.

LITERATURE
2006, Tetsuya Ishida Posthumous Works, Kyuryudo Art Publishing Co., Tokyo, p. 36
2010, Tetsuya Ishida – Complete, Kyuryudo Art Publishing Co., Tokyo, p. 88
2013, Tetsuya Ishida Note, Kyuryudo Art Publishing Co., Tokyo, p. 92
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Asia

A Call of Wakefulness
Tetsuya Ishida's Dream of Freedom

"I am strongly drawn to saint-like artist. The people who trust believe that 'the world is saved a little with each brushstroke,' who 'feel the pain of all mankind in the face of a sheep.' Their example makes me think that I am a worldly person."

――Tetsuya Ishida

Born in 1973 in Shizuoka, Tetsuya Ishida grew up during "The Lost Decade", when Japan fell from being a global economic powerhouse. From his graduation from Musashino Art University in 1996, to his death in 2005 in a train accident in Tokyo, Ishida left behind more than 200 legendary works in just ten years of his creative career. His works reflect the lament of his time, when people were imprisoned in machines and emotions, were suppressed year after year during the development of modern society. In recent years, his works have been exhibited worldwide, including at the Nerima Art Museum in Tokyo, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain, and Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, where collectors have enthusiastically welcomed them. His works are often sought after in the market. They have been collected by the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, and Canadian golfer Nick Taylor.

A Red Colour Representing Freedom in the Cold Life

In contrast to the surrealist Magritte's metaphorical ideas of dream images, Ishida's surreal scenes reflect the grimmest of social backgrounds. Prisoner, which will debut at this autumn auction, is about the depressed, exam-intensive teenage years under the constraint of the education system. Since 1995, he has been using characters and machines as a metaphor for the loss of personal character in the industrial age, when normal people were all under a high degree of standardisation. Since then, he continued to expand the subject matter to include the integration of human beings with their living environment. Prisoner, completed in 1999 and will debut in the auction this autumn, is an essential and classic work on this subject, using the school building as a starting point to discuss the constraints imposed on students by the education system and the struggle against it.

As early as 11 years old, Ishida was a keen observer of school bullying and created a work named Stop Bullying Weaklings!. However, his parents' strong opposition to his artistic dreams made him struggle with the system's rigidity. Like a projection of his own experience, the iconic flat-headed boy in Ishida's painting is now confined to a school building. His eyes looked helplessly and sadly at the girl peering over the wall. With a hint of curiosity that the system has not yet eradicated, the girl notices the young boy's situation. The red schoolbag on her back is the only bright colour in the painting, dancing like a flame on a bleak autumn day, bringing hope and life. It is a glimpse of freedom that the boy's eyes are desperately seeking.

Seeing Oneself from Others, a Statement of Awakening

The protagonists in Ishida's paintings are not just metaphors for himself but projections of every one of us. Growing up in an era of high standardisation and rapid economic development, countless people became "prisoners", homogenised in a web of school, society and family. In the works with a similar theme, such as Awakening, students are asked to make precise studies and measurements like instruments, and their minds are gradually getting rigid. Ishida had a sober insight into the social landscape. He saw the other in the self and interpreted Prisoner from the perspective of the other with the playful and criticising brush of imagination. The contrast between the little young girl in the painting and the magnified young boy is striking, as the reality is vast and the dilemma seems solid. At the same time, the hope is soft but also bright and powerful, just like Ishida's artistic life, seemingly pessimistic but bravely struggling against reality. In a time when individuality is highly valued, a look back at Ishida's paintings seems to leave a warning to the world that there is more to life than just living it. Thinking about it in reverse, perhaps helplessness and disappointment will become another window of hope and relief for everyone.

Price estimate:
HKD: 1,200,000 - 1,800,000
USD: 152,900 - 229,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 3,840,000