About – Masaaki Hasegawa

Disruption and Creation

I’m testing society to see how much it can embrace people of minority and their ideas, thoughts, and acts. I’ve been an outsider since when I was born having Autism spectrum disorder (Asperger’s syndrome). I am Japanese but 40% of my life has been abroad including Australia, Israel, and Spain. I question and challenge society that is often something that is hard to hear or face.

I do not depend on techniques or skills but explore the boundaries of things. I keep changing and refuse to be categorized to be outside a certain frame that people use to understand something. Hence my thoughts and ideas are embodied through different media and approaches including painting, digital media, writing, and my body.

I refuse to play in the narrative of art and its history: a small conceptual box. Stability gives you a sense of safety but I rather create structures in the unknown. Art is not an object but a process and an experience so my art is not embedded in a certain format but in my life. Face it without clinging on referential points. Be brave to interact with the present.

My work is influenced by my experience growing up with synesthesia (the visualization of music and sound), as well as the Japanese sense of beauty, in which a primary focus on space creates harmony between chaos and order.

Like nature, I change and my art changes