When I noticed, there was already someone else in the house.

It began when I was ten years old—the day I left the front door wide open and went out to play with my friends. From that day on, someone slipped into our home.When I came back and realized the door was still open, my friends and I nervously searched every corner of the house, but of course, no one was there.And yet, I knew—there was someone hiding in the closet on the second floor.

 

A fourth member had joined our family of three. Sometimes it was a girl my own age; other times, a man of indeterminate years.They would watch me silently, like ghosts with legs but no faces.I would imagine escape routes in my mind—how I might flee if I ever came face to face with those footsteps I shouldn’t have heard, that presence that shouldn’t have been there.Years after we moved away from that house, that “something”—neither quite he nor she—disappeared.I stopped remembering it altogether.

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One day, long after I’d forgotten the faceless ghost, I found a photograph taken by my grandfather.There it was—that very presence I had felt every day in the house.I remembered then: I had truly played with the people in that picture.
And I felt an overwhelming urge to paint what could no longer be seen.

Many of my paintings have no faces.They are people whose whereabouts are unknown, who no longer exist.Beloved and terrifying people I can never meet again.

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気がつくと家の中にはもう一人いました。

１０歳の頃、家のドアを開き放しで友達と遊びに出かけたその日から人が入り込んだのです。帰ってドアが開き放しなことに気が付き、友達と恐る恐る家の中を探し回りましたが勿論誰もいません。でも確かに２階の押入れにいるのです。

３人家族にもう一人、あるときは同じ位の歳の少女、あるときは妙齢の男性。まるで足があって顔がないゆうれいのようにこちらを見遣ります。聴こえるはずのない足音や居るはずのない気配に、もし出くわしたとしたらこう逃げようと道筋を考えていました。その家から引っ越し何年か経った頃、その彼とも彼女とも言えない何かも消え思い出すこともなくなりました。

顔のないゆうれいを思い出さなくなったある日。祖父が撮った写真を見つけました。そこには毎日家の中に居る気配を感じた何かがいるのです。私は確かに写真の中の人々と遊んだのです。もう見ることなできない何かを描かねばならない思いになりました。

私の絵の多くには顔がありません。どこに居るのかもわからず、存在しない人々です。もう会うことの出来ない愛しく恐ろしい人々です。

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