Matsumae 1

During one of the uprisings of Southern Japan, a group of rebels aquired a ship and sailed off to Matsumae. They planned to secede from Japan and make their own Republic on the island that is now Hokkaido: they called it Ezo.

They built a castle there in Matsumae, up on the hill. But the castle was built to defend itself against swords and arrows, not cannons and guns. The Imperial Forces sailed boldly up after them to teach them a lesson, and the rebels were quickly defeated. I guess one could say that it was an early consequence of a failure to upgrade.

Eventually they moved to Hakodate. They were defeated there, too - their mothers' tears rained that year. There is a replica of that castle on the hill at Matsumae. It is built from concrete and glass, instead of paper and rock. I hear it contains a fine collection of seashells. Before this story, though, was an older story. Another story came after it, too.

There is a long and complicated story
behind these paintings,
and their title "Guilty Pleasures".

But my life does not understand this story.
My life is simply following instructions.
I instruct the tailor to make a dress.
I instruct the photographer to photograph the dress.
I instruct a painter to copy the photograph.
I repeat the previous command four times.

My life is a robot.

Life is imperfect.

Guilty Pleasures, by Lehan Ramsay, was shown at the Faculty Gallery, School of Art and Design, Monash University Melbourne Australia from July 13 - 24, 2009, as a component of a PhD in Visual Arts. The PhD was awarded in December 2009.


Doing this started me thinking about the problem of form - how the basic structures within which we catch information determine the information that accumulates, the meanings that those collections take on, and therefore the decisions we make. If in the pursuit of a new goal we do not consider the basic forms, the chances of real change diminish, because we are still likely to be dealing with the same basic information. And given our tendency to create known patterns, we have a greater likelihood of moving toward familiar outcomes, rather than new and unfamiliar ones. Perhaps this is the point where skill becomes form.

Lehan Ramsay, The Reserve, 2009.

Karesansui is usually a dry landscape. In Hakodate, Japan, it seemed like a beautiful way to use the local conditions of winter - a lot of snow, but not enough for building large ice sculptures. A field of snow can be decorated simply by stomping with one's feet. I made this work over two days in early 2007. The originator of this karesansui idea was Wada Shihomi, and this photograph was taken by Mitsudou san and featured in the Hokkaido Newspaper.