On Several Motifs in the Work of
AYAKO ROKKAKU

Ayako Rokkaku, SCENERY IN THE PROCESS OF BEING FORMED, 2026 at KÖNIG GALERIE © Photo Roman März 

The Primordial Magic of Painting, or the Improvisational Event of Bodily Movement

Art is both a sensory and spiritual activity. As Hegel noted, art is the sensory manifestation of the spiritual Idea. Yet, art is also an intentional suspension or reduction of the spirit. It often appears as an attempt to return to the opaque and uncertain bedrock of the mind. Such is the case with Rokkaku’s work. She returns to the origins of art—a bodily mimesis that freshly manifests the primordial meaning of "painting" at every turn.

In the Renaissance, art was elevated to the status of a "liberal art" (artes liberales) through scientific measurement and mathematical mysticism. In this process, the painter’s body had to disappear invisibly behind the brush, the tool, and the mental activity. Rokkaku now summons the artist’s body back to the viewer's eyes and into the canvas. She allows her eyes, hands, senses, and movements to interact directly with materials, canvas, tools, and paint. Here, "painting" connects directly to its primal meanings: "to rub" or "to leave a mark." It is also telling that the etymological root of the Japanese word for "to write/draw" (kaku, 書く/描く) is "to scratch" (kaku, 掻く). In short, Rokkaku’s finger painting is an act of mimesis—leaving one’s own trace by rubbing and spreading color (or color that has become the hand, or color generated within the movement of the hand) across the material surface of the canvas. It is a manifestation of the primordial desire to manifest the presence and power of one’s own body, to express and reaffirm one's aliveness and energy. (Interestingly, the literal meaning of her name, Ayako ‘彩子’, is "child of many-colored hues.")

Ayako Rokkaku live painting at KÖNIG GALERIE, 2023 © Photo KÖNIG GALERIE

By descending to this bodily origin—this distant starting point—it becomes fundamentally impossible to speak of specific themes, objects, or purposes in her work. It is pure action itself, with nothing predetermined. Yet, it is never an act that remains stationary or repeats the same trajectory. On the contrary, it is an act of "becoming" that, upon starting, constantly moves, grows, and transforms, fearlessly creating spaces, realms, objects, figures, atmospheres, and affects. To use the terminology of contemporary German aesthetician G.W. Bertram (1967–), it is an "art of creative improvisation" where normativity and freedom interact dialectically.

The "live painting" Rokkaku performs before giant canvases recalls the insights of German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811) regarding improvisation and performativity. In his essay On the Gradual Formulation of Thoughts While Speaking, Kleist emphasized that thoughts are not completed in the head and then delivered through language; rather, a thought is slowly born and grows through the very act of opening one's mouth and continuing to speak. The same applies to Rokkaku. Her "work is not planned in the mind but generated in the process of fingers touching and moving across the canvas." The rhythmic flow and mixing of colors at her fingertips is an act of surrendering to improvisation and chance. The light and brightness on the canvas are not pre-mixed; they grow and evolve gradually and emergently through a "bodily painting" where the speed and pressure of fingers collide with the materiality of the paint. She once remarked, "I paint without thinking." This does not mean an absence of thought, but rather that the act of painting itself becomes the artistic thought and the process of formal creation.

Ayako Rokkaku live painting at KÖNIG GALERIE, 2023 © Photo KÖNIG GALERIE

Rokkaku states that "tactile sensation is the source of inspiration and the basic channel through which energy is received and transmitted." This suggests that the canvas is not a flat plane of representation or expression, but an open "field" where the energy of life circulates. The artist’s body heat and fingerprints remain on the canvas as physical traces and material crystallizations. Though she uses canvas and paint, it is difficult to call Rokkaku’s painting merely "painting." It is perhaps closer to sculpture—or more accurately, an "improvisational body art" where drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance are inseparably integrated. Direction, rhythm, line, form, space, and atmosphere—nothing is fixed; everything is shaped, transformed, and refined within the movement of the body and the touch of the hand. In a sense, Rokkaku’s method touches upon "contagious magic." When she rubs and mixes lumps of color on the canvas, it is not a mere mixing of pigments. Rather, it is a magic that awakens life by granting "cosmos" (order) to material in a state of chaos. Her improvisational body art is a magic of color and form, immediately transferred to the viewer’s sight and touch. (It is no surprise that the strange crystallizations of this magical art eventually stepped out of the canvas and into other materials.)

From the Painting of Self-Exploration to the Kafkan Odradek

Rokkaku began painting in earnest around the age of twenty, a time when she felt anxiety about her path and existence—an anxiety everyone experiences, yet which is like no other’s. The most ambiguous, uncertain, and unstable of anxieties. However, at some point, she sensed a subtle but clear affinity between this anxiety and the "squelchy mess" of paint on her hands. Her painting began as a gesture to identify the nature of this affinity. Yet, this affinity was just as ambiguous and unstable as the anxiety itself. Thus, her gestures could not—and would not—stop. Rokkaku’s painting was an attempt to explore her own anxiety and her own outlines, a fundamental motivation that remains unchanged. Is her painting a process of expressing and purifying inner anxiety? Can it be seen as "self-healing"?

It is difficult to say so, for two reasons. First, as S. Kierkegaard (1813–1855) observed, the self and anxiety never stand still for a single moment. They are a complex and dynamic instability itself. The self is always relating to itself and its anxiety, while simultaneously relating meta-critically to the self that is in that relationship. Therefore, self-healing can only ever be ambiguous and provisional; it is more appropriate to view Rokkaku’s attempt as "self-exploration." Second, shortly after beginning her practice, strange, human-like figures began to repeatedly emerge. Most viewers perceive these as the "big-eyed girls" typical of Japanese manga. But is that really the case? Can anyone clearly distinguish whether the figure is a girl or a boy, whether it has limbs or not, or even whether it is a living being at all? One cannot. To me, these strange figures resonate with "Odradek" from Kafka’s short story The Cares of a Family Man.

Ayako Rokkaku, UNTITLED, 2025, acrylic on canvas, triptych, 3 parts, each: 190 x 130 cm, 74 3/4 x 51 1/8 in

Described as a flat, star-shaped tangle of old threads, Odradek is an "in-between" being—neither living creature nor object, a hybrid existence. Of unknown origin and age, Odradek can stand upright like a human, nimbly moving about the house, appearing and disappearing suddenly. It sometimes answers questions and lets out a bizarre laugh, like "the rustling of fallen leaves." Yet, its most decisive characteristics are its "uselessness" and "immortality." Because Odradek has no purpose and performs no conscious actions, it cannot die. The narrator of Kafka’s story, the father of the house, is pained by the thought that even after his death, Odradek will continue to appear at the feet of his descendants, dragging its colorful bits of thread.

Ayako Rokkaku, SCENERY IN THE PROCESS OF BEING FORMED, 2026 at KÖNIG GALERIE © Photo Roman März 

Rokkaku’s half-humanoid figures are also beings of unknown origin and age. It is impossible to predict where they come from, why they vanish, or when they will reappear. Though they are the artist’s creations, they seem to escape her control, appearing as though they might never die, existing without any particular reason or purpose—much like Odradek. Of course, there are differences. Unlike the grotesque and eerie atmosphere of Odradek, the oddly vacant expressions of Rokkaku’s figures evoke a bright and playful mood. Most importantly, they transform their bodies at will. Hair becomes clouds, arms stretch out like tree branches, and they grow rabbit ears or fuse with unidentified animals. Rokkaku’s figures exist outside of all civilization, discourse, and rational order. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) called the dimension in which such figures are rooted the "Vorwelt" (the Primal World/Pre-world). It is more primordial than prehistory—a world that has not yet become "a world," a world prior to all "worlds." But why has the artist descended to this Vorwelt? Is she aware of the fatal risks inherent in it? Not necessarily a mythical destiny or closure, but the danger of a regressive chaos that erases all boundaries and possibilities of form. Fortunately, Rokkaku’s work remains far from this danger. The Vorwelt she shapes through finger painting is not a chaos of severed communication, but a space that affirms affective interaction and play with the "Other." As evidenced by her mundane materials and repeated live paintings, her canvas aims to be a space for open experimentation and experience.

The Paradoxical Resonance Between Analog ‘Tiny Affects’ and the Digital Gaze

We live in an age of highly mediated digital interfaces. The screens we gaze upon are smooth, cold, and in constant, restless flux. In this environment, Rokkaku rejects all tools and plans, choosing a primordial performativity that rubs fingers and body directly against the canvas. Paradoxically, her profoundly analog work holds an intense appeal for the digital native generation. Her bodily painting and its traces demonstrate a "tactile reality" to modern people suffering from "Digital Fatigue," while simultaneously evoking a strange "digital familiarity."

Ayako Rokkaku live painting at KÖNIG GALERIE, 2023 © Photo KÖNIG GALERIE

Rokkaku’s colors are closer to the "light-based colors (RGB)" emitted by digital screens than to the pigments of traditional paints. She frequently uses neon colors or fluorescent acrylics, presenting high-saturation screens that look as though a backlight has been turned on. These hues provide an immediate sense of intimacy to eyes accustomed to smartphone screens or virtual spaces in animation. Despite the rough, hand-painted texture, the combination of colors and the luminescent effects summon the possibility of bodily resonance within digital spaces onto the physical canvas.

Ayako Rokkaku, UNTITLED, 2026, acrylic on canvas, diptych, each: 180 x 180 cm, 70 7/8 x 70 7/8 in

Here, we must pay attention to the "eyes." The most prominent feature of Rokkaku’s figures is their unrealistically large eyes. These eyes either gaze directly at the viewer or chase something in the void. They do not absorb or identify with the viewer’s gaze but reflect it like a mirror. Yet, strangely, the viewer sees through these eyes into the unknown world, the world of affect, in which the figure lives. Thus, the large eyes become a channel forming an intersubjective relationship between the world of affect and the viewer.

Ayako Rokkaku, SCENERY IN THE PROCESS OF BEING FORMED, 2026 at KÖNIG GALERIE © Photo Roman März 

The decisive point is that the objects and figures that suddenly emerge from her fingertips—tiny flowers, skulls, animals, girls—are not objective targets but direct emotional fragments, or "tiny affects." The things and forms blooming on the canvas convey intuitive and immediate affects, much like the icons or emojis of a digital interface. The elements scattered and blurred across the screen float without hierarchy, corresponding to the hypertext of digital images and the gaze of the modern person accustomed to them. In viewing Rokkaku’s painting, the audience feels analog presence and warmth, but also clearly perceives a digital visual grammar (fluorescent colors, characters, flatness) familiar to them. Thus, they naturally open their bodies and minds to interact physically with the painting.

The tiny affects that are constantly repeated, revived, and varied in Rokkaku’s painting are incredibly minute and diverse. Her painting is a pantheistic embodiment of tiny affects. Anxiety, excitement, surprise, shyness, shame, curiosity, joy, longing, helplessness, loneliness, sadness, relief... her gestures and movements pass through a sea of countless affects. Her canvases, sculptures, and installations are filled with affects that pop out like fragments of memory floating somewhere in a cloud, never deleted. By making these fragments physically "touchable," Rokkaku grants a body to volatile digital affects. It is a body that is not eternal, but one that provides immediate empathy and comfort.

While Takashi Murakami’s Superflat slickly satirized the hollow surface of modern consumer culture, Rokkaku’s plane is a "thick surface" where bodily waves and affects are layered. Her work is a site of the "ancient future," where the most primordial of acts encounters the most modern of sensibilities. Standing before her giant canvases, the viewer will experience a sea of affects where anxiety and excitement, surprise and relief are intertwined. This "direct comfort," which feels as though it could be touched with the fingertips, reminds us once again of the preciousness of the bodily presence we have lost.