Raw Egg B なま玉子 B

This is not a photograph. Ueda painted this on canvas with oil and acrylic paints. When one stands in front of this painting, the egg appears so real that one is almost led to believe that it is a photograph. However, a closer look reveals that it is constructed of innumerable brushstrokes of paint. In order to paint an egg, the artist sometimes breaks as many as 200 eggs and photographs them. Then he projects these images onto the canvas using slides, combining them and reconstructing with his eyes and hands the reality which cannot be captured in the slice of time frozen in a photograph. What is created is the ultimate realism and, at the same time, a trompe l'oeil. Since the l970s Ueda has been involved in the realistic portrayal of fluid material, such as an egg or jam. Superrealism, emerging in the 1970s and practiced mainly in the U. S., is best represented by works which deal with social and political themes. In contrast, Ueda has been consistently painting familiar objects. The squares reflected on the egg yolk is his studio window. In this work, an everyday scene has come to possess a sublime quality.