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Screening Committee Members Comment |
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Nobumichi Tosa
President of Maywa Denki |
| Overall Evaluation |
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As a whole, overwhelmingly large number of works was submitted on the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow :  " with over twice the number of entries compared to the other themes. As such, I felt anew that "drawing pictures with computer graphics" is a handy way to look deep inside one's self. Also, with extremely many senior applicants, I was amazed of their rich pictures. Although materialistic richness is present in recent young people's works, they lack the spiritual richness. I was reminded of the difference once again. |
| Review of Award-winning Works |
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*The Grand Prize winning work "HANA" (Masaki Maru)
The Grand Prize winning work, "HANA" (Masaki Maru), is a "double image," which people refer to as "illusionism." It is an interesting work created by overlapping two images - face and flowers - in a single picture, and the face is very humorous that laughter escapes my mouth, but at the same time very classy. A single dark image, probably a skull, has been also added, which provides an extensity to the worldview.
*Excellence Award winning works
Syoichiro Kato of the Excellence Award winning work, "1. The pain of separation from loved ones(Madama Butterfly) 2. The pain of contact with hated ones (Aoi No Ue)" on the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow :" is the oldest of the entrants this year, but he can draw a piece this good. Moreover, the theme is on Madama Butterfly and Aoi No Ue (Princess Hollyhock); it's fantastic that he hasn't dried out at the age of 79!(laughing). I think the work delivers courage to all the men out there that they can "do it!" The colors are also fantastic!
The Excellence Award winning work, "icon parade" (Masaru Kawahara) on the theme "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker  " is so-called folding-screen painting that is portrayed in dots. If you look at it closely, there are specters in the mountain as "Deidarabocchi (a giant specter)" and giant "Yakkosan". The way - the more I see it more I find something interesting - resembles the amusingness of the so-called folding-screen painting. What is brilliant is the way the drawing is viewed with vertical scroll - a similar "vertical scroll" style as the way we browse the web sites. The fun is fantastic.
The Excellence Award winning work, "It shines whether the sun is a throat" (Shinsuke Kanagawa) on the theme "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace :  " portrays a beautiful native kind of women, who somewhat resembles the tribal picture of southern islands, or what Japanese would think of when speaking of a cute girl or beautiful woman, which is not "beauteous" but very powerful beautiful women. The artist's ability can be felt from the way the intenseness of complementary colors such as red and green are used skillfully to compose an energetic drawing.
*Maywa Denki Award "Space-time Ancient shot=3 continuous cropping" (Shigeru Saitoh)
Firstly, I am amazed of the artist's extreme precise work in configuring the drawing by tenaciously creating paths in Illustrator, despite of the artist being 70 years old. Secondly, though it may sound rude, elderly people definitely hold rich spiritual world within them. It became painfully aware to me that there exists a richness of heart that cannot be found in recent young people. |
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Saori Kanda
Artist |
| Overall Evaluation |
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The themes for this year were "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : ," "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : ," and "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker : ." On the contrary to our expectation, the number of entries to the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : " significantly outnumbered the other themes. I was intrigued by this phenomenon. "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : " is not colorless from the beginning, but rather the depth of it can be felt only by the existence of colorful positive world. The works that expressed this point to the limit resulted in surviving for the final screening. For the themes "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker :" and "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : " on the other hand, the works with deep august beauty were prominent, and those that expressed the contradicting images of the theme using their firm depiction ability and unique perspective resulted in winning the awards.
More importantly, as I stress this point every year, those works that were filled with joy of art definitely radiated their strength in the end, and collected the votes of the committee members.
Although DCA will temporary be suspended for next year, in the year after next when it will no doubt resume again, I look forward to seeing again everyone's works filled with ideas, depiction ability, and joy of art. |
| Review of Award-winning Works |
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*The Grand Prize winning work "HANA" (Masaki Maru)
At the first glance, the beautiful colors capture your heart - "what a beautiful color!" Then, before long, the humor hidden in the work seeps out towards the audience. The drawing is not simply beautiful, but it has the power to make you feel, "I like this drawing."
And once again, you feel comfort in the beautiful colors and transparency of the work…
It's this loop of "happiness of gazing at the drawing."
Within the theme filled with beautiful motif and colors, Mr. Masaki's work out-stripped the others in this perspective.
The layout ability of a composite work and its variation is also superb.
Congratulations on winning the Grand Prize!
*Excellence Award winning works
The Excellence Award winning work, "1. The pain of separation from loved ones(Madama Butterfly) 2. The pain of contact with hated ones (Aoi No Ue)" (Syoichiro Kato) on the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow :"
How can the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow :" be expressed in colors… I think that is the main point of this theme.
Mr. Kato's work has deep depth of colors, which on the contrary, makes you feel little by little the "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow :," and within the spectacular screen, the "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow :" is definitely lurking with bated breath. Shadows that hide behind beauty are what the power of fear is about.
The dedicate depiction ability in portraying all this is also wonderful.
The Excellence Award winning work, "icon parade" (Masaru Kawahara) on the theme "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker :"
As I enlarge the drawing more and more on my monitor, the dancing people in the castle town of Edo become visible. Because it is a computer game picture bearing close resemblance to Dragon Quest, you can almost hear a lighthearted music playing from the pop expression, and create a cheerful atmosphere of "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker :."
Let's give a round of applause to Mr. Kahara's idea!
The Excellence Award winning work, "It shines whether the sun is a throat" (Shinsuke Kanagawa) on the theme "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace :) "
The way Mr. Kanagawa defines beauty… I'm extremely curious. All the members of the screening committee became hooked on the woman's displeased eyes. "Beauty" and "gorgeousness" sometimes emits addictive attractiveness when some unbalance is achieved. A wonderful color sense: while vivid, it makes you feel the depth and warmth. I think it's the powerful beauty that is depicted, utilizing these abilities of his.
*Saori Kanda Award winning work, "Result of yearning"
A dangerous scent follows around Ms. Uraji's work. Gorgeous things, cute things, beautiful thing…by persistently overlapping these things, at a certain point, it makes a U-turn and accelerates towards fear… it is filled with air of this surrealism. And that itself is "beauty" that accompanies an aesthetic aroma and stretches beyond "cuteness." The work has an eye-grabbing strength with its carefully and cautiously overlapped depiction in a somewhat sickly way, and brings reminiscent of a beautiful but daunting girl figure that cannot escape the girls' comic world. |
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Kevin Meyerson
Rainbow Japan, Inc., CEO
Rainbow Partners, Inc., CEO |
| Overall Evaluation |
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| First, I am amazed that there were extremely many entries to the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : ." We did not anticipate the economic conditions to deteriorate this far when we decided on the themes a year ago, but in general, I felt that there were many dark-toned pictures. Within them, however, there existed a playfulness and strong expression abilities, and I think its improving more and more. I am very satisfied with the progress. |
| Review of Award-winning Works |
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*The Grand Prize winning works "HANA" (Masaki Maru)
A human face and natural objects were combined to form a shape, which is extremely interesting, almost has a laughable atmosphere. Especially the way the lips, eyes, and nose are created is interesting. The last drawing, I guess it's a face during sleep, I like it very much. I enjoyed very much the way various feelings are expressed.
*Excellence Award winning works
The Excellence Award winning work, "1. The pain of separation from loved ones(Madama Butterfly) 2. The pain of contact with hated ones (Aoi No Ue)" (Syoichiro Kato) on the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : " probably has a deep meaning unique to the Japanese culture. Especially the way the second white faced Aoi No Ue dancing in the darkness is extremely terrifying and was striking to begin with. Madama Butterfly on the first page is so beautiful, and the way the scary Aoi No Ue comes in after has a plot and is interesting.
The Excellence Award winning work, "icon parade" (Masaru Kawahara) on the theme "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker : " is very good. I love this kind of style. My company has been long dealing with computer graphics, and I feel that this dot picture domain will be continuing forever. Rather than simply drawing using a pencil or brush, a detailed work of coloring each individual textile must be undertaken, so creating from dots requires an extremely difficult technique. This gentleman worked extremely hard; it's fantastic. I look forward to his future works.
The Excellence Award winning work, "It shines whether the sun is a throat" (Shinsuke Kanagawa) on the them of "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : " has a very interesting face. It seems like the lips are made out of clams, the neck-less, and the way the head is stuck to the shoulders have somewhat intriguing impression, and they are fun. The colors are also striking. It has a combination of the colors I like - red, green, and brown - which, if misused, could end up like holiday colors, but it is amazing that it hasn't. |
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Norihiko Saitou
Senior Vice President
(Member of the Board & Member of the Executive Committee) |
| Overall Evaluation |
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| Once again this year, I am honored to serve as one of the committee members to represent the organizer. I am delighted to see an increase in the number of entrants who have participated in DCA2008 from all over the world including Japan. In addition, varieties of the entries have significantly widened, and an atmosphere of competition on the imagination and creativity towards the themes has been growing, surpassing the competition of the expression abilities. Although we did not expected the economical situation to deteriorate this much, we had established the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : ." It was striking that there were significant number of entries to this theme, may be because it reflected the depression. In selecting winners among many entries, the first perspective as a committee member was to question if the artist had "sweated". The work that is created by the artist sweating and putting his/her heart in has a strength that won't allow the brilliant idea to collapse. |
| Review of Award-winning Works |
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*The Grand Prize winning work "HANA" (Masaki Maru)
The Grand Prize went to "HANA" by Masaki Maru on the theme "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : ". Mr. Masaki has depicted in a comical as well as in a cynical manner "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace ()," or "HANA(flowers)," of the various states of life into a composite work composed of four pieces of work. The witty idea of entrusting "HANA(glamorousness)" of life to "Hana(flowers)" and the rich expression ability deserves a high appraisal. "HANA" overwhelmingly gained the support of all the members of the committee and was chosen as the Grand Prize.
*Excellence Award winning works
The Excellence Award winning work, "1. The pain of separation from loved ones(Madama Butterfly) 2. The pain of contact with hated ones (Aoi No Ue)" (Syoichiro Kato) on the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : "
With twice as many entries to the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : " compared to the other themes, it became a closely-contested. The one who won the Excellence Award and took control of the "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : " section was Syoichiro Kato's "1. The pain of separation from loved ones(Madama Butterfly) 2. The pain of contact with hated ones (Aoi No Ue)". It is a composite work composed of two pieces : the former is "Madama Butterfly" and the latter is a horrifying grudge-filled collage imaging "Aoi No Ue." Firstly, despite of the theme being "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : ," I was completely astonished by the gorgeousness of the work, then, I was amazed further after knowing that this work was created by a 79 year old artist. I was inspired by this work.
The Excellence Award winning work, "icon parade" (Masaru Kawahara) on the theme of "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker : "
The Excellence Award winning work of the "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker : " section is Masaru Kawahara's "icon parade." This work is a composite work composed of three folding-screen paintings, seemingly classic Japanese-style painting, but uses the approach of pointillism, bringing reminiscence of a modern game. When the work is inspected closely, you can see that people standing in line for the festival, peddlers, and people dancing on the streets are drawn in details. The work, with its richness in the playful spirit as well as its high level of perfection, was awarded the Excellence Award by consensus of the committee members.
The Excellence Award winning work, "It shines whether the sun is a throat" (Shinsuke Kanagawa) on the theme "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : "
In "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : " section, Shinsuke Kanagawa's "It shines whether the sun is a throat." has won the Excellence Award. This work is a brightly-colored portrait of a woman, who is less than beautiful, with a glamorous cactus flowers like fireworks in her hair. The skin color of fox eyed ugly face is green. The background is deep red. The hair accessories are richly-colored. I would like to see the face of Mr. Kanagawa, who considers this piece of work as "beautiful." Every committee member expressed sheer admiration to the unique world created by the combination of colors that defies common sense.
*Special Recognition Award
In "Midnight Party" by Atsumi Kurotaki, who was awarded the DCA2007 Grand Prize, familiar Maman and the ladies fill-up the screen dancing like crazy. Ms. Kurotaki is even more high spirited. All the members of the committee decided, without objection, to give the Screening Committee's Encouragement Award to this work, even more powerful than that of last year.
*Honorable Mention Award
All the works that were awarded the Honorable Mention Award were also all masterpieces. Ayako Hoshino's "Sourei" on the theme "Beauteous, Ostentatious, Balmy, and Grace : ," Eiji Matsubara's "jellyfish - dance" on the theme "Dance, Excite, Alive, Leap, and Flicker : ," and Yoriko Yoshida's "The Second" on the theme "Darkness, Obscurity, Night, and Shadow : " are the personal favorites. Beautiful figurative design, sophisticated expression ability, and above all, delicate sense of beauty can be felt from all of the work pieces. |
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