The Third Visual Regime
1. The Problem
The Third Visual Regime did not begin as a concept. It began as a problem. During the development of my painting practice, I encountered situations in which two historically distinct visual systems remained simultaneously active within a single image. Rather than merging into a new style, they continued to operate according to different visual logics. I found no existing framework that adequately described this condition. The Third Visual Regime emerged as an attempt to articulate that problem.
2. Why Existing Frameworks Are Not Enough
Visual systems have often been examined as historically distinct frameworks. Western perspective, chiaroscuro, and the visual logic of pre-modern Japanese painting have each been discussed on their own terms. These approaches remain indispensable. However, they provide only limited tools for describing situations in which different visual systems remain simultaneously active within a single pictorial field. The problem is not the existence of multiple traditions. The problem is how their coexistence can be understood without reducing one to the other.
3. The Third Visual Regime
The Third Visual Regime is not a style. It is not a synthesis between East and West. It describes a condition in which different historical systems of vision remain simultaneously operative without being unified. Their collision makes visible the historical assumptions that normally appear as natural ways of seeing. Rather than resolving the tension, the work preserves it as a field of inquiry.
4. Method
Painting functions here as a research method rather than a vehicle for illustration. The workplaces contour-based spatial structures derived from pre-modern Japanese ukiyo-e into direct confrontation with the volumetric logic of Western cinematic chiaroscuro. The objective is not to produce stylistic hybridity. Instead, the paintings create situations in which incompatible visual systems remain simultaneously legible, allowing their underlying structures to become perceptible.
Ukiyo-e
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Painting
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Collision
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Recognition
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The Third Visual Regime
5. Exhibition as Evidence
The exhibition extends the research beyond individual paintings. Works, wall texts, architectural relationships, and the sequence of viewing are organized as components of a single spatial argument. The exhibition therefore functions not merely as a presentation of finished works, but as an environment in which the proposed framework can be experienced, examined, and questioned.
6. Future Directions
The Third Visual Regime is an ongoing research project. Its future development includes exhibitions, academic writing, and dialogue across artistic and theoretical contexts. Rather than offering a final theory of vision, the project seeks to provide a framework through which different visual systems can continue to be examined.
Historical Visual Systems
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Collision
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Existing Frameworks
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Insufficient Description
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The Third Visual Regime
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Painting
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Exhibition
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Research