The Small Motif and the Boundless

Peter Davidson - Plastic fruit on sewing thread roll, 

oil, wax, acrylic on wooden panel 18 cm h x 14 cm w

A small motif can appear almost insignificant: a piece of plastic fruit balanced on a sewing‑thread roll, placed on a wooden surface and illuminated just enough to make its presence known. Yet when I begin to paint such an arrangement, its simplicity quickly gives way to something less stable. The object remains before me, but my perception of it does not remain still.

Still life has long offered artists a way to attend closely to ordinary things. Fruit, vessels, flowers, tools, and other familiar objects have served as occasions to explore colour, form, material, and the act of seeing. This history provides a point of departure for my own work, but my interest lies less in the tradition itself and more in what happens to perception in the moment it becomes painting.

When I paint an everyday object, I am not trying to reproduce or illustrate what is in front of me. The motif is a beginning rather than an end. As I look, the immediate perception is accompanied by other perceptions: memories, sensations, visual associations, and traces of previous encounters. What I see in the present is therefore never isolated from what I have seen before. Perception arrives layered, unstable, and already in motion.

This is where the idea of apeiron becomes important to my understanding of painting.

I use apeiron in the sense of the boundless or inexhaustible. The object before me is finite: this plastic fruit, this thread roll, this particular moment. But perception continually exceeds the particular thing being observed. No single act of looking exhausts what can be perceived. The painting therefore exists between the particular and the boundless — between the motif and the field of perception that surrounds and permeates it.

A contour may begin as an attempt to describe the object, but as the mark develops, other sensations enter it. A colour may shift because of the colour beside it. A form may become uncertain. One mark may remain partially visible beneath another. A brushstroke may hesitate, change direction, or retain something of the movement through which it came into being. I am interested in allowing these things to remain visible.

Much has been written about the confident line — the apparently certain mark that is often taken as evidence of technical mastery. I do not reject technical knowledge, nor do I regard certainty as inherently wrong. Rather, I question what happens when certainty becomes the primary measure of a painting. A line can be technically assured while still leaving unexplored the complexity of perception from which the painting emerges.

My own interest lies in the space where perception is still forming. I want the painting to retain something of the hesitation, interference, adjustment, and uncertainty involved in looking. A mark does not need to conceal the instability from which it emerged. It can reveal it. In this sense, the brushstroke becomes more than a means of describing an object; it becomes evidence of an encounter between perception and material.

The changes of colour, interruptions of contour, darker and lighter passages, and accumulation of marks in the surface are part of the painting’s record of becoming. What might initially appear to be instability can instead be understood as the trace of perception negotiating with paint.

This is why the scale of the motif does not determine the scale of the question.

A piece of plastic fruit balanced on a sewing‑thread roll may be a modest subject. Yet the act of painting it raises questions that belong to a much larger history of painting: How do we see? How does recognition occur? How does memory enter perception? When does an object become an image? And what remains of perception when seeing is translated into paint?

My concern is related to the history of still life, but my emphasis is on the event of perception itself. The painting is not intended to provide a final answer to what the object is. Instead, it allows the act of seeing to remain open. The motif gives perception something particular to encounter, while apeiron names what continues to exceed that encounter.

The small painting therefore becomes a meeting point between the finite and the inexhaustible. The fruit is there. The thread roll is there. The wooden surface is there. Yet the painting is also the record of everything that happened between seeing those things and making the marks that remain.

For me, this is where the integrity of painting resides: not in eliminating uncertainty, but in allowing the instability of perception to become visible. The smallest motif can contain an immeasurable field. And perhaps this is one of the possibilities still open to painting today — to take something almost overlooked and remain with it long enough for the act of seeing itself to become the subject.

小さなモチーフと無限なるもの

小さなモチーフは、しばしば取るに足らないもののように見える。木の面に置かれたプラスチックの果物と糸巻き――わずかな光の中でその存在を示すだけの控えめな配置。しかし、こうした構成を描き始めると、その単純さはすぐに不安定なものへと変わっていく。対象は目の前にあるが、私の知覚は決して静止してはいない。

静物画の伝統は、長い歴史の中で、画家が身近なものに注意深く向き合うための場を提供してきた。果物、器、花、道具など、日常的な対象は、色彩、形態、素材、空間、そして「見る」という行為そのものを探究するための契機となってきた。私にとってこの歴史は出発点ではあるが、より重要なのは、知覚が絵画へと変わるその瞬間に何が起きているのかという点である。

私が日常の物を描くとき、目の前の対象を再現したり、説明したりしようとしているわけではない。モチーフは終点ではなく、始まりである。対象を見るとき、現在の知覚には、記憶、感覚、視覚的な連想、過去の経験の痕跡など、さまざまな知覚が重なり合って伴走する。現在見ているものは、過去に見たものから完全に切り離されることはない。知覚は常に層をなし、不安定で、すでに動き始めている。

ここで、私の絵画理解において重要になるのが「アペイロン」という概念である。

アペイロンを私は「無限なるもの」「尽きることのないもの」という意味で用いている。目の前の対象は有限である――このプラスチックの果物、この糸巻き、この瞬間。しかし知覚は、観察される特定の対象を常に超えていく。ひとつの視線が、知覚し得るすべてを尽くすことは決してない。絵画は、特定の対象と、それを取り巻く無限の知覚のあいだに存在している。

輪郭は対象を記述しようとする試みとして始まるかもしれない。しかし、筆が進むにつれて、他の感覚がその線に入り込む。隣り合う色によって色が変化することもある。形が曖昧になることもある。ひとつの筆致が、別の筆致の下に半ば残ることもある。筆の動きがためらい、方向を変え、その運動の痕跡を表面に留めることもある。私は、こうした現象が画面に残ることに関心を持っている。

「自信に満ちた線」については多く語られてきた。技術的な熟練の証として理解される、揺るぎない線。しかし私は、技術を否定するわけでも、確信を誤りとするわけでもない。ただ、確信が絵画の価値を測る主要な基準になってしまうとき、何が失われるのかを考えたい。技術的に優れた線であっても、その線が生まれる知覚の複雑さを十分に探究していない場合がある。

私が興味を持つのは、知覚がまだ形成されつつある場所である。絵画には、見ることに伴うためらい、干渉、調整、不確かさが残っていてほしい。線や筆致は、それが生まれた不安定さを隠す必要はない。それを示すことができる。そうした意味で、筆致は単なる対象の記述ではなく、知覚と素材の出会いの証拠となる。

色の変化、輪郭の途切れ、明暗の揺らぎ、表面に蓄積する筆致――これらは絵画が生成される過程の記録である。一見すると不安定に見えるものも、知覚が絵具と交渉している痕跡として理解することができる。

だからこそ、モチーフの大きさが問いの大きさを決めるわけではない。

糸巻きの上に置かれたプラスチックの果物という控えめな主題であっても、絵画行為はより大きな絵画史の問いを呼び起こす――私たちはどのように見ているのか。認識はどのように生じるのか。記憶はどのように知覚に入り込むのか。対象はいつイメージになるのか。そして、見ることが絵画へと変換されるとき、知覚の何が残るのか。

私の関心は静物画の歴史に接続しつつも、その中心にあるのは知覚という出来事そのものである。絵画は対象の最終的な答えを提示するためのものではない。むしろ、見るという行為を開いたままにしておく。モチーフは知覚が出会うための特定の契機を与え、アペイロンはその出会いを常に超えていくものの名である。

小さな絵画は、有限なものと無限なものの交差点となる。果物はそこにある。糸巻きはそこにある。木の面もそこにある。しかし絵画には、それらを見ることと、そこから生まれた筆致のあいだで起きたすべてが記録されている。

私にとって絵画の誠実さは、不確かさを排除することではなく、知覚の不安定さを可視化することにある。最も小さなモチーフが、計り知れない広がりを内包することがある。そして、今日の絵画にまだ開かれている可能性のひとつは、見過ごされがちなものに長く留まり、見るという行為そのものを主題として立ち上げることなのかもしれない。

Peter Davidson - Difficult drawing of a Japanese woman 2026

Pencil, coloured pencil, correction fluid, white acrylic paint on acid free paper f2

Two Phenomenologies of Drawing: Giacometti and Apeiron

Drawing may be understood not merely as a means of producing images, but also as a way of investigating how seeing takes place. Alberto Giacometti’s drawing practice and the Apeiron praxis developed through Two Dogs Art Space in Akashi approach this question from different directions.

Giacometti repeatedly examined the appearance of the figure through sustained observation, revision and the accumulation of marks. Apeiron, by contrast, attends to the perceptual field in which memory, attention, material traces and sensory events remain active before an image reaches a stable form.

This distinction is not intended to establish a hierarchy between the two approaches. Rather, they may be understood as different ways of making the relationship between perception and the mark visible. Giacometti develops a disciplined structure through which appearance can be repeatedly examined. Apeiron allows the conditions from which appearance emerges to remain active within the process of drawing.

This distinction is considered here through Difficult Drawing of a Japanese Woman (2026), made with pencil, coloured pencil, acrylic paint and correction fluid. The work does not reject representation. Instead, it examines what may happen to representation when the activity and instability of perception remain materially visible within the image.

Giacometti and the Examination of Appearance

Giacometti’s drawings are frequently characterised by repeated, overlapping and searching lines. Rather than relying upon a single definitive contour, he often builds and rebuilds the presence of the figure through an accumulation of marks. The Fondation Giacometti describes drawing as an important part of Giacometti’s continuing effort to understand and represent reality, and discusses the development of his drawing practice across different periods of his career.

Giacometti’s drawing may therefore be understood as a disciplined practice of return. The figure is not simply assumed to be completely known and then copied. It is repeatedly approached through observation and marking. Each line participates in an attempt to test the figure’s appearance, spatial position and perceptual presence.

This procedure does not eliminate uncertainty. On the contrary, it makes uncertainty visible within a structured act of observation. Giacometti does not abandon representation; rather, he continually reconstructs it through an extended engagement between looking and drawing.

The repeated line may consequently be interpreted as a means of asking where the figure is, how it occupies space and how its presence may be made perceptible. In this sense, the line is not only descriptive. It also records the continuing effort to establish a relation between the observer, the figure and the surrounding field.

The Cage and Spatial Location

A related concern may be observed in Giacometti’s use of cage structures. The Centre Pompidou records Cage as a drawing dating from 1930–31, executed in graphite on paper. The Fondation Giacometti records The Cage as dating from 1950–51 and notes that Giacometti had been exploring the theme of the cage for approximately twenty years. The Fondation also discusses Le Nez, including the successive versions of the cage structure and Giacometti’s continuing adjustments to the relationship between the cage, the work contained within it and the viewer.

The cage may be interpreted not merely as an enclosure, but as a spatial condition through which the figure is located, separated and examined. This interpretation does not imply that the cage possesses one single or definitive meaning. Rather, it suggests that the structure intensifies the relationship among the figure, the surrounding space and the conditions of perception.

Something comparable may be observed in Giacometti’s drawings. The accumulation of lines establishes a field around and through the figure. The figure is not simply placed upon an empty surface; it is progressively located through the act of marking.

Giacometti’s method may therefore be understood as structured and disciplined, while remaining open to uncertainty. Attention is repeatedly directed towards the figure, and repetition provides a means of sustaining the act of looking long enough for the difficulties of appearance to become visible.

Apeiron as an Open Perceptual Field

Within the Apeiron praxis, drawing begins from a less determinate perceptual field. This does not mean that the process is without structure or that marks are produced arbitrarily. Rather, it means that the relations among perception, memory, attention, material and sensory experience remain active before the image becomes fixed.

Apeiron understands drawing as embedded within a wider lived situation. Perception may be affected by delay, interruption, fatigue, conversation, changes of light, bodily movement and the ordinary conditions of studio life. These circumstances are not necessarily external to the work. They may participate in the formation of attention and consequently influence the development of the image.

Within this praxis, the drawing need not begin with a clearly established object waiting to be represented. A motif may provide an initial point of orientation, but it may subsequently be transformed, displaced or absorbed into a wider perceptual field.

Perceptual residues, memories of previous drawings, digital images, changes in colour and fine‑grained sensory activity may enter into the drawing. These elements are not necessarily organised according to a predetermined image. They may interact and be reorganised during the process of making.

Apeiron therefore does not describe a blank state before perception. It refers to the open and indeterminate field in which perception, experience and material possibility are organised in relation to one another.

Residue, Delay and Erasure

Within Apeiron, erasure does not necessarily function as the correction of an error. It may interrupt an emerging form, cover a previous decision, expose a new surface or leave a visible residue of an earlier image.

What disappears is not necessarily irrelevant. The trace of what has been removed may remain active within the subsequent drawing. A previous image may continue to influence the image that follows, even when its original form is no longer clearly visible.

This changes the status of the mark. The mark is not understood solely as evidence of an intention to describe an object. It may also be understood as the visible remainder of an encounter among perception, memory, material and time.

Pencil, coloured pencil and correction fluid consequently operate not only as descriptive instruments. They also function as materials through which perception may accumulate, conflict, interrupt itself and change direction.

Delay is equally important. A delay between seeing and marking may allow perceptual residues to remain active rather than being immediately resolved through a conventional representational decision. In this sense, delay is not merely hesitation. It may become a condition through which the image continues to develop.

Difficult Drawing of a Japanese Woman

This distinction becomes particularly important in Difficult Drawing of a Japanese Woman (2026).

The difficulty indicated by the title does not primarily concern anatomy, proportion or technical competence. It concerns the question of what is being represented when perception itself begins to destabilise the image.

There is no single predetermined procedure through which the drawing must be completed. If the process moves too quickly into established habits of constructing an image through proportion, contour or conventional representation, the drawing may begin to approach illustration rather than the perceptual intensity sought within the work.

Within the Apeiron praxis, this movement may be understood as a signal to change direction. A shift in material, colour, erasure or attention may be required in order to prevent the image from becoming fixed too soon.

Correction fluid is therefore not used only to correct an error. It may interrupt an emerging form, conceal a previous decision, reveal a new surface or preserve the memory of what has been covered. The correction remains active as both an act of removal and a material event.

Pencil and coloured pencil similarly function in more than one way. They may describe the figure, but they may also register the accumulation of attention, the conflict between alternative perceptions and the changing relation between figure and field.

The movement of looking is also significant. The drawing may retain traces produced through repeated acts of observation: remnants of where attention has moved, returned, hesitated or changed direction. These traces should not be understood as scientific records of eye movement. They are better understood as material residues of the experience of looking.

The drawing consequently does not seek to stabilise the woman into a completely resolved image. It attempts to remain responsive to the point at which figure, perception, memory and material begin to interfere with one another.

Scintillation and Apogee Scintillation

I use the term scintillation to describe a condition of heightened perceptual activity within the drawing. Scintillation is not simply a decorative surface effect. It refers to the moment when the marks begin to operate sensorially rather than solely descriptively.

At such a point, the drawing may no longer be experienced merely as an account of an object. The marks begin to establish an active relation among surface, material, perception and the viewer’s attention.

I use the term apogee scintillation for the point at which this activity reaches its greatest intensity within a particular drawing. It is not a predetermined visual formula or a fixed technical method. It is a desired condition that the work may approach through the accumulation, interruption and reorganisation of marks.

Apogee scintillation should therefore not be understood as a guaranteed endpoint. It names a provisional condition in which the drawing’s perceptual, material and sensory relations achieve an especially intense coherence.

Two Ways of Organising Uncertainty

The difference between Giacometti and Apeiron may be understood as a difference in how drawing organises perceptual uncertainty.

Giacometti	Apeiron
Repeatedly examines an encountered figure	Investigates the field through which a figure becomes perceptible
Uses accumulated lines to locate appearance	Allows perceptual and material residues to participate in image formation
Structures uncertainty through sustained observation	Allows uncertainty to remain active within the formation of the image
Returns to the motif through a disciplined procedure	Permits the motif to change through delay, interruption and reorganisation
Maintains a stronger distinction between figure and surrounding space	Allows the distinction between figure and field to become less determinate

This distinction should not be reduced to a simple opposition between stability and instability. Giacometti’s drawings also disclose uncertainty, incompletion and difficulty. The difference is that Giacometti tends to make uncertainty visible within a sustained structure of observation, whereas Apeiron allows uncertainty to participate more directly in the formation of the image.

Giacometti may therefore be understood as structuring perceptual uncertainty. Apeiron, by contrast, permits perceptual uncertainty to structure the drawing.

Both approaches treat drawing as a site of inquiry. Their methods differ, however, in their relation to the formation of the figure. Giacometti directs attention towards an object whose appearance is repeatedly examined. Apeiron attends more closely to the conditions through which an object or figure becomes perceptible.

The distinction is not simply between representation and abstraction. It concerns different relationships to perceptual formation.

Representation Reconsidered

Giacometti’s practice does not need to be understood as a rejection of representation. His sustained engagement with drawing demonstrates a continuing effort to examine how a figure may be held within the act of seeing. Drawing becomes a means of returning to the figure while acknowledging that its appearance cannot be secured through a single, final act of description. The Fondation Giacometti describes drawing as part of Giacometti’s continuing search to understand and represent the reality around him.

Apeiron does not seek to negate this approach. Instead, it begins from another position. Rather than concentrating primarily on how the appearance of a motif may be stabilised, it attends to the perceptual, material and experiential conditions through which the motif becomes available to representation.

This difference is particularly important in Difficult Drawing of a Japanese Woman. The work does not reject the figure, nor does it abandon representation altogether. Instead, it questions what happens to representation when the activity of perception remains visibly active within the image.

Giacometti may be understood as constructing a structure through which appearance can be repeatedly approached. Apeiron remains within the wider field from which appearance emerges and is continually reorganised.

One approach constructs a framework for examining appearance. The other attends to the conditions through which appearance becomes possible.

Conclusion

Giacometti and Apeiron may therefore be understood as proposing two different phenomenologies of drawing.

Giacometti develops a disciplined structure through which the appearance of the figure can be repeatedly examined. His accumulated lines establish a field in which the figure may be located, tested and reconstructed. His practice does not eliminate uncertainty; it gives uncertainty a repeated and recognisable form.

Apeiron allows drawing to develop through the active relations among perception, memory, attention, material, delay and residue. The figure does not necessarily need to resolve into a fixed image. The mark may remain part of an unfinished event in which perception continues to interact with the material conditions of drawing.

In Difficult Drawing of a Japanese Woman, pencil, coloured pencil, acrylic paint and correction fluid are used not merely to describe the figure. They allow previous marks, interruptions, erasures and perceptual residues to remain active within the work.

The drawing therefore does not treat representation as a completed result. It presents representation as an unfinished perceptual event.

The two practices suggest two different ways of organising uncertainty: one through sustained observation and structural return, the other through continued perceptual openness and material reorganisation. Neither approach needs to cancel the other.

Together, they demonstrate that drawing may function not only as a representation of what is seen, but also as a means of investigating how seeing becomes a mark.

For Apeiron, that investigation continues beyond the question of likeness. It seeks the point at which perception becomes materially active within the drawing itself: the condition I describe as scintillation and, at its greatest intensity, apogee scintillation.

Sources

• Fondation Giacometti — “Giacometti and drawings.”

• Fondation Giacometti — “The Cage,” 1950–51.

• Fondation Giacometti — “Le Nez.”

• Centre Pompidou — “Cage,” 1930–31.

• Centre Pompidou — “L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti.”

描くことの二つの現象学：ジャコメッティとアペイロン

描くことは、単にイメージを作る手段ではなく、「見ることがどのように起こるのか」を探究する方法として理解することができる。アルベルト・ジャコメッティのドローイングの実践と、明石の Two Dogs Art Space で展開されているアペイロンの実践は、この問いに対して異なる方向からアプローチしている。

ジャコメッティは、持続的な観察、修正、そして線の蓄積を通して、人物の現れを繰り返し検証した。一方アペイロンは、記憶、注意、素材の痕跡、感覚的な出来事が、像が安定した形に達する前に活動し続ける知覚の場に注目する。

この区別は、両者の間に優劣をつけるためのものではない。むしろ、知覚と線の関係を可視化する二つの異なる方法として理解することができる。ジャコメッティは、現れを繰り返し検証するための規律ある構造を築く。アペイロンは、現れが生じる条件そのものが描く過程の中で活動し続けることを許容する。

この区別は、鉛筆、色鉛筆、アクリル絵具、修正液を用いて制作された《日本人女性の難しい素描》（2026）を通して考察される。この作品は表象を拒否するものではない。むしろ、知覚の活動と不安定性がイメージの中に物質的に可視化されるとき、表象に何が起こるのかを検討している。

ジャコメッティと現れの検証

ジャコメッティのドローイングは、繰り返され、重なり合い、探るような線によって特徴づけられる。単一の輪郭線に依存するのではなく、線の蓄積を通して人物の存在を何度も構築し直す。ジャコメッティ財団は、ドローイングを彼の「現実を理解し、表象しようとする継続的な努力」の重要な一部として位置づけ、キャリアの各時期におけるドローイングの展開を論じている。

ジャコメッティのドローイングは、反復の規律ある実践として理解できる。人物は完全に既知のものとして前提され、模写されるのではない。観察と描写を通して繰り返し接近される。各線は、人物の現れ、空間的位置、知覚的な存在を検証する試みに参加している。

この手続きは不確かさを排除しない。むしろ、不確かさを観察の構造化された行為の中に可視化する。ジャコメッティは表象を放棄しない。むしろ、見ることと描くことの拡張された関係を通して、表象を継続的に再構築する。

繰り返される線は、人物がどこにいるのか、どのように空間を占めているのか、その存在をどのように知覚可能にするかを問う手段として解釈できる。線は単に記述的であるだけでなく、観察者、人物、周囲の場の関係を確立しようとする継続的な努力を記録している。

ケージと空間的定位

ジャコメッティのケージ構造の使用にも関連する関心が見られる。ポンピドゥー・センターは、1930–31年のグラファイトによる素描《ケージ》を記録している。ジャコメッティ財団は《ケージ》（1950–51）を記録し、ジャコメッティが約20年間ケージのテーマを探究していたことを述べている。また《鼻（Le Nez）》についても、ケージ構造の複数のヴァージョンと、ケージ、内部の作品、鑑賞者との関係に対するジャコメッティの継続的な調整が論じられている。

ケージは単なる囲いではない。人物が定位され、分離され、検証される空間的条件として解釈できる。この解釈はケージが単一の決定的な意味を持つことを示すものではない。むしろ、構造が人物、周囲の空間、知覚の条件の関係を強化することを示唆している。

ドローイングにも同様のことが見られる。線の蓄積は人物の周囲と内部に場を形成する。人物は空白の面に単に置かれるのではなく、描く行為を通して徐々に定位される。

ジャコメッティの方法は構造化され規律的でありながら、不確かさに開かれている。注意は繰り返し人物へ向けられ、反復は現れの困難が可視化されるまで見る行為を持続させる手段となる。

アペイロン：開かれた知覚の場

アペイロンの実践では、描くことはより未確定な知覚の場から始まる。これは、過程に構造がないという意味ではない。むしろ、知覚、記憶、注意、素材、感覚経験の関係が、像が固定される前に活動し続けるということである。

アペイロンは、描くことを広い生活状況の中に位置づける。遅延、中断、疲労、会話、光の変化、身体の動き、スタジオの日常的条件などが知覚に影響を与える。これらは作品に外在的なものではなく、注意の形成に関与し、イメージの展開に影響を与える。

この実践では、描くことは必ずしも既に確立された対象から始まる必要はない。モチーフは初期の指向点を提供するが、その後変形され、移動し、より広い知覚の場に吸収されることがある。

知覚の残滓、過去のドローイングの記憶、デジタル画像、色の変化、微細な感覚活動が描く過程に入り込む。これらの要素はあらかじめ決められたイメージに従って組織されるのではなく、制作の過程で相互作用し再編成される。

アペイロンは知覚以前の空白状態を指すのではない。知覚、経験、素材的可能性が互いに関係づけられる開かれた未確定の場を指す。

残滓、遅延、消去

アペイロンでは、消去は必ずしも誤りの修正として機能しない。形成されつつある形を中断し、以前の決定を覆い、新しい面を露出させ、過去のイメージの痕跡を残すことがある。

消えたものが無関係とは限らない。消去されたものの痕跡は後続のドローイングの中で活動し続ける。元の形が明確に見えなくなっても、以前のイメージが次のイメージに影響を与え続けることがある。

これにより、線の地位が変化する。線は対象を記述する意図の証拠としてだけ理解されるのではない。知覚、記憶、素材、時間の遭遇の可視的残滓として理解される。

鉛筆、色鉛筆、修正液は記述的な道具であるだけでなく、知覚が蓄積し、衝突し、中断し、方向転換する素材として機能する。

遅延も重要である。見ることと描くことの間の遅延は、知覚の残滓が即座に表象的決定によって解決されずに活動し続けることを可能にする。遅延は単なる躊躇ではなく、イメージが発展し続ける条件となり得る。

《日本人女性の難しい素描》

この区別は《日本人女性の難しい素描》（2026）において特に重要となる。

タイトルが示す難しさは、解剖学、比例、技術的能力に関するものではない。知覚そのものがイメージを不安定化し始めるとき、何が表象されているのかという問いに関わる。

描くための単一の決められた手順は存在しない。比例、輪郭、慣習的表象によってイメージを構築する既存の習慣に過程が早く入り込みすぎると、作品は求められる知覚的強度ではなく、イラストレーションへと近づいてしまう。

アペイロンの実践では、この動きは方向転換の合図として理解される。素材、色、消去、注意の変化が必要となることがある。

修正液は誤りを正すためだけに使われるのではない。形成されつつある形を中断し、以前の決定を隠し、新しい面を露出させ、覆われたものの記憶を保存する。修正は除去の行為であると同時に素材的出来事でもある。

鉛筆と色鉛筆も複数の機能を持つ。人物を記述するだけでなく、注意の蓄積、知覚の対立、人物と場の関係の変化を記録する。

見ることの動きも重要である。ドローイングは、注意が移動し、戻り、躊躇し、方向転換した痕跡を保持することがある。これらは科学的な眼球運動の記録ではなく、見る経験の素材的残滓として理解されるべきである。

作品は女性を完全に解決されたイメージとして固定しようとしない。人物、知覚、記憶、素材が互いに干渉し始める地点に応答し続けようとする。

閃光（Scintillation）と極点閃光（Apogee Scintillation）

私は「閃光（scintillation）」という語を、ドローイング内部の知覚活動が高まる状態を指すために用いる。閃光は装飾的効果ではない。線が記述的であるだけでなく、感覚的に作用し始める瞬間を指す。

その時、作品は単なる対象の記述として経験されなくなる。線は、面、素材、知覚、鑑賞者の注意の間に能動的な関係を形成し始める。

「極点閃光（apogee scintillation）」は、この活動が特定の作品において最大の強度に達する地点を指す。これはあらかじめ決められた視覚的公式でも、固定された技法でもない。線の蓄積、中断、再編成を通して作品が接近し得る望ましい状態である。

極点閃光は保証された終点ではない。知覚、素材、感覚の関係が特に強い一貫性を達成する暫定的な状態を指す。

不確かさを組織する二つの方法

ジャコメッティとアペイロンの違いは、描くことが知覚の不確かさをどのように組織するかという違いとして理解できる。

ジャコメッティ	アペイロン
出会った人物を繰り返し検証する	人物が知覚可能になる場を探究する
線の蓄積によって現れを定位する	知覚と素材の残滓がイメージ形成に参加する
観察の持続によって不確かさを構造化する	不確かさがイメージ形成に直接参加することを許す
規律ある手続きによってモチーフに戻る	遅延、中断、再編成によってモチーフが変化する
人物と周囲の空間の区別を強く保つ	人物と場の区別が不確定になることを許す

この区別は、安定と不安定の単純な対立に還元されるべきではない。ジャコメッティのドローイングも不確かさ、未完、困難を明らかにする。違いは、ジャコメッティが不確かさを観察の構造化された枠組みの中に可視化するのに対し、アペイロンは不確かさがイメージ形成に直接関与することを許す点にある。

ジャコメッティは知覚の不確かさを構造化する。アペイロンは知覚の不確かさがドローイングを構造化することを許す。

両者は描くことを探究の場として扱う。しかし、人物形成に対する関係は異なる。ジャコメッティは繰り返し検証される対象へ注意を向ける。アペイロンは対象や人物が知覚可能になる条件により近く注意を向ける。

この区別は、表象と抽象の違いではない。知覚形成に対する異なる関係である。

表象の再考

ジャコメッティの実践は表象の拒否として理解される必要はない。彼の持続的なドローイングへの取り組みは、人物が見る行為の中でどのように保持され得るかを検証する継続的な努力を示している。ドローイングは、人物に戻る手段となり、その現れが単一の最終的な記述によって確保できないことを認める。ジャコメッティ財団は、ドローイングを彼の「現実を理解し、表象しようとする継続的な探求」の一部として位置づけている。

アペイロンはこのアプローチを否定しようとするものではない。むしろ、別の位置から始まる。モチーフの現れを安定させることに主眼を置くのではなく、モチーフが表象可能になる知覚的・素材的・経験的条件に注意を向ける。

この違いは《日本人女性の難しい素描》において特に重要である。作品は人物を拒否するわけでも、表象を完全に放棄するわけでもない。むしろ、知覚の活動がイメージの中に可視化され続けるとき、表象に何が起こるのかを問う。

ジャコメッティは現れを繰り返し接近するための構造を構築する。アペイロンは現れが生じ、再編成され続ける広い場の中に留まる。

一方は現れを検証する枠組みを構築する。 他方は現れが可能になる条件に注意を向ける。

結論

ジャコメッティとアペイロンは、描くことの二つの異なる現象学を提示している。

ジャコメッティは、人物の現れを繰り返し検証するための規律ある構造を築く。線の蓄積は人物が定位され、検証され、再構築される場を形成する。彼の実践は不確かさを排除しない。不確かさに繰り返し現れる形を与える。

アペイロンは、知覚、記憶、注意、素材、遅延、残滓の能動的な関係を通して描くことを展開する。人物は必ずしも固定されたイメージに解決される必要はない。線は、知覚が素材的条件と相互作用し続ける未完の出来事の一部として留まり得る。

《日本人女性の難しい素描》では、鉛筆、色鉛筆、アクリル絵具、修正液は人物を記述するためだけで

Blue Moon at Nishi-ku: Photography, Delay, and the Material Logic of Painting

Blue Moon at Nishi ku 

Oil, wax, and acrylic on wooden panel, 18 × 18 cm

Photograph and painting by the artist

Blue Moon at Nishi‑ku: Photography, Delay, and the Material Logic of Painting

Yesterday, in clear weather, I walked through the Nishi‑ku valley, a traditional rice‑growing landscape that I have painted for many years, looking for a motif. I was drawn to a small, easily overlooked road bridge, with a farmhouse visible in the distance. The stream was flowing with renewed force after the recent heavy rains. I photographed the scene myself with a digital camera and later that evening began the painting with an acrylic underpainting. The photograph is my own record of this encounter with the landscape. It does not function as a finished image to be reproduced, but as an intermediary between direct observation and painting. It allows the motif to remain available after I have left the site, while also introducing a distance between the original encounter and the subsequent act of painting. It is within this distance that I locate what I call Delay.

Working from my own photograph is not, for me, a matter of transferring a photographic image onto a painted surface. The photograph is one stage within a longer perceptual and material process: from place to photograph, from photograph to underpainting, and from underpainting to oil and wax. At each stage, attention, memory, and material response alter the conditions of the next. This distinction is important within my practice of Apeiron. The stages of making are not strictly separate events. Photographing, remembering, observing, underpainting, and painting belong to a continuous perceptual process. Although the acrylic underpainting is made after the physical encounter with the landscape, it remains connected to that encounter through the photograph and through my accumulated familiarity with the valley. It is therefore not merely a preparatory layer. It is my first material response to the motif.

The photograph introduces a spatial and temporal interval. I understand this interval as Delay. Delay is not simply a pause between seeing and painting, nor does it mean that the original experience has been lost. Rather, it is a condition in which the encounter continues to act after direct physical presence has ended. The photograph carries something of the encounter forward while also transforming it through its flattened, selective, and mediated form. I cannot speak for the perceptual experience of another artist. In my own practice, however, the accumulated experience of moving through this valley over many years continues to influence what I see and how I paint. The terrain has become deeply familiar. Its forms, distances, light, vegetation, water, and changing conditions have entered my visual memory. These elements return during painting not simply as nostalgia or recollection, but as perceptual traces activated through the act of working.

The photograph does not replace physical presence. It becomes the condition for another encounter with the motif. Its flattened and selective appearance contrasts, in my experience, with the resistance and variability of acrylic, wax, oil, and wood. This difference creates a productive tension between the mediated image and the material surface. The photograph therefore does not determine the painting. It becomes one of the conditions through which further perception and invention can occur. When I began working with wax and oil the following morning, the previous evening’s acrylic layer remained materially present. The earlier encounter had not disappeared; it had become part of the surface upon which the next encounter took place. The subsequent marks responded not only to the photograph but also to what the acrylic had already established. Colour, texture, opacity, resistance, and accidental traces from the earlier stage influenced what happened next.

The painting consequently contains several temporalities: the moment of walking beside the stream, the moment of photographing the road bridge, the evening in which the acrylic underpainting was made, and the following morning when wax and oil were introduced. These moments are not simply represented in the finished work. They are embedded in its material development. Within Apeiron, I use the term Delay to describe the interval through which an encountered place continues to act after direct observation has ended. It is not proposed here as a universal account of perception, nor as a claim that other artists experience photography in the same way. It is a concept developed from my own practice: a way of understanding how a place can remain active within painting after direct observation has ceased.

Blue Moon at Nishi‑ku is therefore neither a direct representation of the valley nor a reconstruction of it from memory. It is a site where present perception, accumulated familiarity with place, photographic mediation, temporal distance, and material process converge. The landscape participates in the work not only as a subject but as an accumulated perceptual presence, repeatedly reactivated through practice. The original motif has passed into Delay, but it has not disappeared. It continues to act through the perceptual residues carried into the surface of the painting. The photograph is neither the endpoint nor the authority of the image, but one element within a larger continuum of perception, memory, time, and material response.

In this sense, Blue Moon at Nishi‑ku is not simply a painting made from a photograph. It is a painting about what happens to an encounter after it has been mediated, postponed, remembered, and materially re‑entered. Delay names that interval: the space in which the original experience remains active while becoming something else. This text describes my own artistic process and does not propose a universal account of how photography or painting must be understood.

《ブルー・ムーン／西区》──写真、ディレイ、そして絵画の物質的論理について

昨日、天候が安定していたので、私は長年描き続けてきた西区の谷間──伝統的な稲作地帯──を歩き、モチーフを探していた。目に留まったのは、小さく見過ごされがちな道路橋であり、その奥には農家がかすかに見えていた。最近の大雨で水量を増した小川は勢いよく流れていた。私はその場でデジタルカメラを使って光景を撮影し、同じ日の夜にアクリルによる下層描きを始めた。

この写真は、私自身の風景との遭遇を記録したものであり、完成された画像を模写するためのものではない。直接の観察と絵画のあいだに位置する媒介として機能し、現場を離れた後もモチーフを保持しつつ、初期の遭遇と後続の制作行為とのあいだに距離を生じさせる。その距離の中に、私は ディレイ（Delay） と呼ぶ状態を見出している。

私にとって、写真をもとに描くことは、写真画像をそのまま絵画へ転写することではない。写真は、より長い知覚的・物質的プロセスの一段階にすぎない。場所から写真へ、写真から下層描きへ、そして下層描きから油彩とワックスへ──各段階で注意、記憶、素材への反応が次の段階の条件を変化させていく。

この区別は、私の実践である アペイロン（Apeiron） において重要である。制作の各段階は厳密に分離された出来事ではない。撮影、記憶、観察、下層描き、そして絵画は、ひとつの連続した知覚過程に属している。アクリルによる下層描きは、風景との直接的な遭遇の後に行われるが、写真を介した記憶と、長年蓄積された谷間への親密な理解によって、その遭遇と結びついたままである。したがって、下層描きは単なる準備段階ではなく、モチーフへの最初の物質的応答である。

写真は空間的・時間的な間隔を導入する。私はこの間隔を ディレイ と理解している。ディレイは、単なる「見ること」と「描くこと」のあいだの停止ではなく、元の経験が失われたことを意味するわけでもない。むしろ、直接的な身体的接触が終わった後も、遭遇が作用し続ける条件である。写真は遭遇の何かを前方へ運びつつ、その平坦で選択的で媒介された形態によって経験を変容させる。

他の画家がどのように知覚するかを語ることはできない。しかし私自身の実践では、長年この谷間を歩き続けてきた経験が、私の見るもの、描くものを常に形づくっている。地形、距離、光、植生、水、そして変化する条件は視覚的記憶として蓄積され、制作の行為の中で、郷愁ではなく、作業によって活性化される知覚的痕跡として立ち上がる。

写真は身体的な現場経験を置き換えるものではない。むしろ、モチーフとの新たな遭遇の条件となる。写真の平坦で選択的な外観は、アクリル、ワックス、油彩、木材といった素材の抵抗や変動性と対照を成し、媒介されたイメージと物質的な表面とのあいだに生産的な緊張を生む。写真は絵画を決定するのではなく、さらなる知覚と創造が生じる条件のひとつとなる。

翌朝、ワックスと油彩を加え始めたとき、前夜のアクリル層は物質的にそこに残っていた。前日の遭遇は消えたのではなく、次の遭遇が起こる表面の一部となっていた。後続の筆触は、写真だけでなく、アクリルがすでに確立していたものにも応答した。色、質感、不透明性、素材の抵抗、そして偶発的な痕跡が次の段階を左右した。

こうして絵画には複数の時間性が含まれる。小川のそばを歩いた瞬間、道路橋を撮影した瞬間、アクリルの下層描きを行った夜、そして油彩とワックスを加えた翌朝──これらの瞬間は単に作品に「描かれている」のではなく、その物質的展開の中に埋め込まれている。

アペイロンにおいて、私は ディレイ を、直接観察が終わった後も遭遇した場所が作用し続ける間隔として用いている。これは普遍的な知覚の説明でも、他の画家が同じように写真を経験するという主張でもない。私自身の実践から生まれた概念であり、直接観察が終わった後も場所が絵画の中で活動し続ける仕組みを理解するための方法である。

《ブルー・ムーン／西区》は、谷間の直接的な再現でも、記憶による再構成でもない。現在の知覚、蓄積された場所への親密さ、写真による媒介、時間的距離、そして物質的プロセスが交差する場である。風景は主題としてだけでなく、蓄積された知覚的存在として作品に参加し、制作のたびに再活性化される。

元のモチーフはディレイへと移行したが、消えたわけではない。知覚の残滓として絵画の表面に作用し続ける。写真はイメージの終点でも権威でもなく、知覚・記憶・時間・素材の応答から成るより大きな連続体の一要素である。

この意味で、《ブルー・ムーン／西区》は単に「写真から描かれた絵」ではない。遭遇が媒介され、延期され、記憶され、物質的に再び立ち上がるときに何が起こるのかを扱った絵画である。ディレイとは、元の経験が別のものへと変わりながらも、なお作用し続けるその間隔を指す。

本稿は、私自身の制作過程を記述するものであり、写真や絵画をどのように理解すべきかについて普遍的な説明を試みるものではない。

Self-Portrait Study: Apeiron, Residue, and Cessation as Spatial Limit

 Peter Davidson 2026

Self-portrait study—pencil, felt-tip pen, coloured pencil, watercolour, and correction fluid on acid-free F2 paper

This self-portrait study—pencil, felt-tip pen, coloured pencil, watercolour, and correction fluid on acid-free F2 paper—emerged today from a sense of failure elsewhere in my practice. Printmaking had collapsed, painting resisted me, and drawing became the place to which I returned. I did not return to drawing in order to recover likeness, nor to stabilise a familiar motif. I returned because drawing permits me to enter Apeiron through perception rather than representation.

Here, I understand Apeiron as a condition of the unformed: a field in which perception remains open, unstable, and unfinished. It is not something I attempt to illustrate. Rather, it is encountered through the delay between looking and making. I do not treat this delay as temporal duration. In my practice, time behaves as space: a field in which residues, possibilities, and limits coexist.

In my experience, the visual system does not present the motif as a continuous and perfectly resolved image. What arrives in consciousness seems already interrupted—registered through movements of the eyes, attention, memory, and bodily sensation. Looking therefore leaves residues. Each new observation enters a field already populated by traces of previous observations. In drawing, these residues become visible. What I thought I was seeing as a face becomes a succession of fragments: edges, tonal shifts, textures, interruptions, remembered contours, and small moments of attention.

The digital image of my own face intensifies this instability. I am not simply looking at myself; I am looking at an image that has already passed through another technological structure of representation. The face exists simultaneously as physical presence, digital image, memory, and drawing. Each layer alters the next. Drawing makes this instability difficult to ignore.

The materials become agents within this delay. Pencil records hesitation and the gradual formation of a contour. Felt-tip introduces a more immediate and sometimes disruptive chromatic presence. Coloured pencil allows attention to accumulate in smaller, more granular traces. Watercolour opens the surface into areas of diffusion and intensity. Correction fluid interrupts the accumulating structure, creating moments of absence within what has already been drawn.

Correction fluid is particularly important to this praxis. It does not function simply as a means of correcting an error. Its role is closer to interruption. Traditional illustration carries with it an inherited expectation that mistakes should be identified, corrected, concealed, and ultimately brought into conformity with an established image. Correction fluid allows me to refuse that obligation. It does not necessarily return the drawing to a previous state. Instead, it introduces another event. The white mark becomes part of the drawing. In this sense, correction is no longer correction; it becomes a means of reopening the field.

This is important because illustration has a gravitational pull. Once a recognisable face begins to emerge, there is a temptation to complete it—to resolve the eyes, clarify the nose, correct the proportions, establish the mouth, and make the image increasingly convincing as an image of its subject. But that movement toward resolution can also terminate the perceptual event. The drawing begins to obey the memory of what a face is supposed to look like rather than remaining responsive to what is actually occurring through looking. I am interested in resisting that closure.

The drawing therefore moves between construction and interruption. A line establishes something; another line questions it. Colour asserts itself; correction fluid removes part of the assertion. A contour appears convincing, only to become unstable when another observation enters the field. The face remains recognisable, but recognition is never allowed to become the final authority.

The most important moment, however, is not the beginning of the drawing but the moment at which I stop. Stopping is not quite a decision. It is experienced first as a sensation. There comes a point at which another mark no longer seems capable of intensifying the perceptual field. The drawing has accumulated enough competing traces that a further intervention risks becoming merely additive. The next line would not open another possibility; it would simply enter the existing density.

At that point, the drawing is not necessarily finished. It is saturated.

Saturation is different from completion. Completion belongs to the logic of the finished object: the image has achieved its intended form and can therefore be declared complete. Saturation belongs to the behaviour of the field itself. It describes a threshold at which further action ceases to produce meaningful reconfiguration. This is where cessation becomes part of the praxis.

The sensation of stopping arrives before conscious explanation. It feels pre-reflective: not a judgement of beauty, composition, or likeness, but a recognition that the next mark would alter the field without necessarily deepening it. The drawing has reached a temporary equilibrium between what has been perceived, what has been remembered, what has been erased, and what remains unresolved.

That equilibrium is not symmetry. It is not harmony. It is not aesthetic perfection. It is a dynamic balance within delay.

Every mark enters a surface already carrying the residue of previous marks and previous acts of looking. As the drawing develops, the density of that residue increases. Hue, line, texture, erasure, water, and correction fluid accumulate into a complex perceptual field. At a certain threshold, the distinction between addition and interference becomes unstable. The mark that might once have produced a new sensation begins instead to collapse into what is already there.

That collapse is the signal to stop.

I do not understand this signal as mystical, nor do I regard it simply as conscious aesthetic judgement. It is a threshold experienced through the body before it is articulated by thought. Apeiron, in this sense, is not an infinite production of marks. It is the condition that allows the work to remain open long enough for such a threshold to become perceptible.

The paradox is that openness eventually produces cessation. The drawing must stop in order for its instability to remain visible.

If I continued indefinitely, the accumulation of marks would eventually suppress the very uncertainty I am trying to register. Too much information can become another form of closure. Saturation therefore establishes a limit—not a limit imposed from outside by convention, but one emerging from the internal behaviour of the work.

This self-portrait exists at that limit. It does not attempt to provide a definitive image of myself. Instead, it records a particular encounter between looking and making: a sequence of perceptual fragments translated into line, colour, wash, erasure, and residue. The face is present, but only provisionally. It is continually being constructed and dismantled.

What remains is not likeness alone, but the evidence of looking. The drawing becomes a site where perception, memory, material, and delay converge. Pencil hesitates. Colour interrupts. Water disperses. Correction fluid removes and simultaneously creates. Lines accumulate until they begin to interfere with one another. Recognition appears and then becomes unstable again.

Eventually, the field reaches saturation.

I stop.

Not because the image has become complete, but because the next mark would no longer belong to the same perceptual event. The cessation is therefore part of the drawing. The absence of the next mark is also a mark.

And in that moment, Apeiron is not represented. It is encountered as the interval between one possible continuation and the decision—or perhaps the sensation—not to make it. Cessation is not a moment in time but a position within the perceptual field: the region where further marks cease to reconfigure the work.