Why popular cultural images and icon in my art?

My art is my self portrait.
Instead of painting my face, the places I have been, people I have met or things I have done, I am depicting my portrait as my thoughts and ideas which have been formed by who I have been. And I express it in my art through collaging the everyday familiar images as a tool like a common language to communicate with the viewers.

Let's say I am painting my hometown landscape. There is MacDonald's, Starbucks, famous modern architectural buildings, and a movie theater with movie posters on the walls. Do I have to ask permissions to MacDonald's, Starbucks, architects of the famous buildings, movie directors and actors of the movie posters to depict them in my hometown landscape each time I paint one? What is found objects and collaging magazine and book pages cuts art?? All these are part of our society, culture, and our history. Artists like us merely want to record our existence through the world we live in.

I am using popular cultural images as American and Japanese cultural icons and I create my artwork as a social commentary in a way like a newspaper caricature. My artwork is also a parody and that is the line I believe that we could borrow recognizable images to express our individual unique ideas, thoughts, and opinions. Like Andy Warhol, combination of the modern technology in art and the well-known popular images as tools to expressing and shearing artist's ideas, a personal view, and one's passion. As an artist this is one of our missions to the society and to the history of the humankind!

2006 Fujiko Isomura
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