Ishida’s images never flirt with the grotesque; they have often been referred to as “surreal,” but they could easily be described as a kind of bizarre, reportorial history painting, too, for they are certainly vivid documents of the spirit of their time.
During Japanese artist Tetsuya Ishida’s brief decade-long career, the artist produced a limited number of only 217 paintings exploring the themes of hopelessness and uncertainty after the collapse of Japan’s “bubble economy” in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Men On A Conveyor Belt, executed in 1996, is a striking example of Ishida’s powerful works that depict students and workers as “cogs in a machine”, fusing his human figures with machines, buildings and consumer products. In works such as this, Ishida explores the challenges posed by integrating new technologies into existing commercial and social structures in the context of Japan’s rapid technological advancement. Further, the artist interrogates the anonymity of Japan’s professional workforce, presenting his figures as clones of one another. Here, identical factory workers are presented in the process of manufacturing white collar professionals, each one standardized with matching features, clothing and body positions, draped lifelessly over the step of what appears to be an escalator. In The Men On A Conveyor Belt, Ishida also achieves a sense of expendability of his characters, each nameless and unimportant. Indeed, the bleakness felt by the artist is mirrored by his muted colour palette, emphasizing the anxiety and hopelessness experienced in Japan during the “lost decade” of economic recession.
When I think about what to paint, I close my eyes and imagine my-self from birth to death. But what then appears is human beings, the pain and anguish of society, its anxiety and loneliness, things that go far beyond me.
Tetsuya Ishida had long demonstrated a strong sense of social awareness and disillusionment, engaging in political discourse from a young age. The artist was born in Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, a port city known for the 1954 Lucky Dragon incident in which a group of Japanese fishermen were exposed to radiation as a result of a U.S. thermonuclear test at Bikini Atoll, with one crew member dying as a result. Ishida was hugely influenced by his encounter with Lithuanian American Social Realist Ben Shahn’s depiction of this event, deciding at the age of eight years old that he intended to be a painter. Works such as The Men On A Conveyor Belt not only reveal the influence of Social Realists such as Ben Shahn, but they also wonderfully merge realism with an air of the Surreal. Further, critic and arts journalist Edward M. Gómez has described how: “His images, in their oddness, exude the radical air that wafts through such iconic Japanese modernist works of the immediate postwar period as those of Tetsumi Kudō (mixed-media creations evoking wartime destruction in the nuclear age), On Kawara (whose “Bathroom” drawings (1953-54) featured peg-like, naked humans in disorienting, tiled rooms), and Shūsaku Arakawa (whose early sculptures featured corpse-like cement blobs placed in elegant, fabric-lined, coffin-like boxes)” (Edward M. Gómez, “Life-and-Death Paintings, From a Career Cut Short”, Hyperallergic, 16 November 2019, online), situating Ishida and his fantastical works amongst an important lineage of Japanese artists.
An extraordinary artist to have emerged at the end of the 20th Century, Tetsuya Ishida’s career was cut short by his untimely death at the age of thirty-one after he was struck by a train in Tokyo. In 2007, his family donated 21of his 217 paintings to the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan. His work has since been exhibited internationally at Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo (2008); Ashikaga Museum of Art, Japan (2013); Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (2014-15); and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2019), which traveled to Wrightwood 659, Chicago.
石田徹也的圖像從未止於荒誕；它們常被稱之為『超現實』，但亦可輕易被形容為異乎尋常的報導式歷史畫作──這些作品為那個時代的精神留下了鮮明紀錄，這是無庸置疑的。
日本藝術家石田徹也在短短十年的藝術生涯裡創作了217幅畫作，透過作品積極討探1980年代末至1990年代初的日本泡沫經濟爆破後，社會上縈繞不散的動盪不安與惶恐絕望。石田徹也的作品經常將畫中人物與機器、大廈和消費產品嫁接結合，藉此表達學生與上班族都只是「機器裡的小齒輪」，微不足道。當時日本的科技發展一日千里，藝術家透過畫作深入探討要將創新科技應用在原有的商業與社會架構上所面對的種種困難。他亦以畫中一個個容貌神態盡皆一致的複製人像，向日本上班族和專業人士彷若無名小卒的社會現象提出質疑。這幅1996年所作的《運輸帶上的男人》，展示了左右兩排別無二致的工廠工人，每一位都埋首在仿若扶手電梯的生產線上，專心製作一個個白領專業人士。這些白領上班族全部擁有同樣的面孔和衣飾，軀體擺著同樣的姿勢，躺在一級級的運輸帶上，了無生氣。石田徹也在本作中以一個個無名人物，表達打工階層裡的個人毫不重要、可有可無。藝術家在用色上亦選擇了黯淡的色調，以強調日本在經濟衰退下「失去的十年」所經歷的焦慮與絕望。
當我要思考畫甚麼時，我會合上眼睛，想像自己從出生到死亡都經歷一遍。但在腦中浮現的，是人類，是社會的悲痛苦楚、焦慮孤獨，是遠比我個人重要的事情。
石田徹也從小就參與政治討論，展現出強烈的社會意識，早早就對社會不抱希望。這位藝術家生於日本靜岡縣燒津市，這個港口城市在1954年曾發生第五福龍丸事件，當時美國在比基尼環礁進行核試驗，載著日本漁民從燒津市出發的「第五福龍丸」漁船在環礁附近海域暴露於核輻射中，造成一位船員身亡。八歲的石田徹也一次偶然看到美籍立陶宛裔的社會現實主義學家本・沙恩（Ben Shahn）的作品，畫中描繪了第五福龍丸事件，他隨即深受影響，立志要成為一位畫家。《運輸帶上的男人》等作品不只揭示了本・沙恩等社會現實主義學家對石田徹也的影響，同時亦反映了現實與超現實主義的完美結合。藝評家兼藝術記者愛德華・M・戈麥斯形容：「石田徹也的畫作稀奇古怪，流露出激進的氣息，與二戰後時期的日本現代藝術大師之作一脈相承，如工藤哲巳（他的複合媒材作品讓人聯想起核時代戰爭中的損毀破壞）、河原温（他的『浴室』系列畫作（1953-54年作）描繪了鋪滿瓷磚、空間扭曲的房間內狀如釘樁的赤裸人體），以及荒川修作（他早年的雕塑包括在典雅大方卻形似棺材的盒子裡，將狀如屍身的水泥塊放在布內襯之上）」（愛德華・M・戈麥斯，「生與死的畫作，來自驟然中斷的藝術生涯」，《極端敏感》（Hyperallergic），2019年11月16日，摘錄自網絡）。戈麥斯這番言論已儼然將石田徹也與這些日本著名藝術家置於同等地位，足見其作品的意義之重。
石田徹也才華洋溢，是20世紀末藝壇的冉冉新星。可惜的是，這位未來無限的藝術家在31歲那年在東京遇上平交道事故，英年早逝。2007年，他的家人從217幅遺作中捐贈了21幅予日本靜岡縣立美術館。他的作品隨後亦展於世界各地多個藝術機構與博物館，包括日本東京練馬區立美術館（2008年）、日本足利市立美術館（2013年）、三藩市亞洲藝術博物館（2014-15年），以及馬德里索菲亞王后國家藝術中心博物館（2019年），並巡迴到芝加哥賴特伍德659展覽空間展出。