Shunsaku Hayashi

Lives and works in Japan

Artist statement

My practice moves between large-scale painting, animation, experimental film, and installation. Many of my moving-image works emerge from a repetitive process in which a painting is photographed, altered, and photographed again. Movement unfolds in the film, while traces of each intervention accumulate on the painting’s surface. I use cinematic elements such as editing, rhythm, repetition, and duration not only to represent movement, but also to make it physically perceptible. I am interested in how painting can contain time and how moving images can acquire material weight. A painting may appear as a single moment while holding multiple temporal states within it. Through animation, the image unfolds as a continuous process of transformation. Painting gives material resistance to the temporal flow of moving images, while moving images open up time within the still surface of painting. A recurring concern in my work is the state of being “in between”: between stillness and movement, material and digital space, and individual and collective bodies. Editing, repetition, digital rules, and spatial arrangements shape how bodies move, how they are seen, and how they relate to others. In particular, I am interested in the individual body as it is shaped and positioned by collective logic, rules, assigned roles, and demands for efficiency. Through repeated movements and exchanges of roles, I explore moments when bodies move beyond fixed positions—active and passive, supporting and...

Artwork