What Inspires You: An Interview With Kenjio

Book Atlas

1. Please tell us a little bit about what you do.

My sculpture series is a three-dimensional journal that conveys snippets of my emotions and feelings toward life; and the themes of this series often touch upon the notion of knowledge, home and birth. I often write my experiences in a journal but find it inadequate to convey how I truly feel. As a result, I translate these paragraphs to a visual form that is three dimensional, simplistic, and often relatable to many. I call these sculptures “three dimensional hieroglyphs of my experiences.” Often times, the true meaning of text and words are just beneath that thin layer of their lexical meaning. In other words, we live in a metaphorical world. 

The Sleeper

2. Your primary images are of interactions between a solitary figure and the pages of a book, and you speak a bit about the person gaining/ struggling with new knowledge in your descriptions. Will you please expand a bit about your sculpture concepts?

This is a form of 3D journal for me, which means it is personal; hence solitary. The figure is me and the book is my response to knowledge. So, when there are new ideas I learn from books or other sources that I need to sleep on, I reflect that experience with the Sleeper. My interaction with knowledge is very enlightening for me, as I not only learn about the external world, but I learn a lot about me. Reflexively, making these experiences tangible and visible reminds me of my learning experiences. 

Sleeper on Jellyfish Folds

3. You use additive processes when creating your work, but the book pages form little bits of negative space in some of your pieces. How do your respond to form and space as you are creating each piece?


I hate routine, rules, predictability and conventionality. When there is voice that says “it has to be in the center,” I skew it. I also like to reveal my obsession with equilibrium and my fight against it.

1. Buddha Tree IV     2. Thinker on Paradise Bird

Clamp

4. Keeping our work fresh means constantly seeking new sources of inspiration. Where do you look to find it and/ or what kinds of sources most inspire you?

There isn't a particular person; rather, it is a group of people and ideologies. Rodin, Constantin Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani are the two artists; ideological examples are Japanese and Chinese art, Daoism's notion of balance and symmetry. However, (this may not make sense to you,) I don’t have time to think about fresh work or ideas anymore because I am a Ph.D. student. I am never free, for anything, tv, social life, art making even. But there are moments when I can't read, write and/or think any further (mental overload). During these episodes, I will make a figure. Sometimes I fold or cut a book. So, each piece is completed through installments of these little study breaks. As I do this, new ideas just come to me naturally.