Kikuko Tanaka

Artist Statement

“A Tragic Bambi” is my psychic autobiography in a guise of an open-ended tragicomic epic that revolves around the recurring images of urination on Bambi as an idée fixe. Making artwork has been a means of psychological self-examination. I do not start making artwork with predetermined concepts. Instead of making artwork in order to embody pre-existing ideas, I like to follow my whim and impulse. I also borrow motifs from existing literature and artworks, both to express my compassion toward them and to take a pleasure in deranging them within my context. Most of time, I’m trying to make bad jokes through my work. Yet, it is a well-discussed issue in psychoanalytic theories that jokes reflect one’s desire. My work is constantly in a process and develops through my self-analysis of my own works. This is a process I find myself in the others and the others in myself. The ultimate goal is to know myself in connection with the others.