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Loosely melted butter on top of crispy toast. Many of you may be familiar with this picture of toast. Ulala Imai, a painter who “can only paint in oil,” has continued to paint familiar indoor motifs such as dining tables, fruits, and stuffed animals. When she was a high school student, she clearly realized that she was going to become an artist because of a certain food. How could she draw such a “delicious looking picture”? We spoke with Ms. Imai at her home. Why “I can’t draw if I don’t have something in front of me

–Hello. I’m sorry to bother you. Is this your studio?

Imai: My studio is in the corner of my living room where I have a canvas. We have a family of five living here.

–Imai, there are a lot of things that you use as motifs in your paintings.

Imai: That’s right. I always put together a motif in front of me and draw it.

–When I asked for an interview, I received an email reply saying, “It is true that I was born with hearing loss and did not have the confidence to live in the community, so I set out to become a painter in order to find a job to live.

Imai: That’s right.

–How do you see and feel the world as you see it, and how do you project it into your work?

Imai: I haven’t been able to draw many images in my mind. That’s why I can’t draw unless I have something in front of me. For example, I can’t draw a cup when I’m told, “Please draw a cup with nothing in it. So I would only draw realistic ones. Butter is also oil, so it goes very well with oil paints.

–The piece of toast displayed over there also looks very tasty. Many of you may be familiar with Ms. Imai’s paintings from the cover art of “Kanawanai” (Kazuko Uemoto, Taba Books).

Imai: I’ve always been a painter who could only paint in oil, but after I was given the opportunity to do the cover painting for “Kanawanai”, even people who were not interested in art may have become aware of it. I guess the title and the usual ubiqui-tous toast pairing was interesting. People might think of me as a writer of buttered toast (laughs).

–Some of the works look like photographs when viewed from a distance. The texture of the butter when it’s ready to eat is very real.

Imai: When you look closely at my paintings, they don’t look like photographs at all, but I don’t know why. Actually, butter is also oil, so it goes very well with oil paints.

–Oh, that’s how it is, isn’t it?

Imai: That’s right. It feels like it’s about to melt, but it doesn’t. Then, when I was asked to draw soft yokan (red-bean paste dessert) called “Yururuka” by Toraya for an advertising job, I asked him, “How can I draw yokan in oil painting? I was puz-zled. But the shape is square-like and the texture is buttery when I thought about it. I drew it with the intention of making it soft and buttery, and it turned out to be smooth. It looks so good when you match the speed of your brush

–Why do Imai-san’s pictures look so delicious?

Imai: I think it’s because I drew the overall characteristics of the bread early, rather than looking at the details. I felt that if I took the time to draw it carefully, it would end up looking like it had been baked for a long time and not very tasty.

–it’s called the essence of bread.

Imai: That’s right. Draw without hesitation. It looks so good when you match the speed of the brush. For example, a pineapple core is like a fluorescent light

–In the text of your first art book, GATHERING (Baci), which was published in August of this year, you wrote about “luminescence” and it was very impressive. “Once, in a dark room, a small canvas I had painted could be seen to glow. Ever since then, I’ve been interested in painting in such a way that it glows slightly from the canvas.”

Imai: It was three years ago that I became interested in light. That’s when I moved into this house. The countertops in the kitchen are now very clean and shiny stainless steel, aren’t they? When I saw the look of the outside light coming in through the kitchen window and reflecting the shadows of the food on the stainless steel, I thought to myself, “Oh, the reflection is beautiful.

— For example, the wick of a pineapple is like a fluorescent light. Imagine letting the light shine from the inside out. He said, “You have to be quick, and you have to finish painting before the paint dries.

Imai: The house is surrounded by brown wood walls and is dark, so as I was painting it, I felt like it was glowing from within the painting. For example, when you come home after a hard day’s work and it’s pitch-black, if there’s a picture hang-ing on the front door wall that looks like it’s glowing from the inside, you’ll feel the brightness and feel relieved. I thought it would be interesting if I could make a picture like that. I want to make the avocado look as ripe as possible.

–The avocado picture also looks like it’s glowing, doesn’t it? Is there a strong desire in you to “draw something that looks delicious”?

Imai: That’s right. I want to make the avocado look as ripe as possible.

Imai: My father took me to the Museum of Western Art over-seas when I was a kid and I was impressed and attracted by classic covers of artbooks at the museum shop. So, I wanted to make an artbook that is like the ones sold in such a place. When I looked at the book that contains a selection of the advertisements directed by Mr. Kasai, his work seemed moderate, natural and gentle, which was close to the ideal image I had had. So I told Mr. Kasai the image I mentioned earlier and asked him to design my book. I really like the result, and I’m glad that I could work with him.

I want to be a painter who is loved by a wide range of generations for a long time, rather being a focal figure during a short period. So, like the “MELODY” that I mentioned before, I draw each motif over and over again, changing it little by little. I hope such works will be recognized and appreciated for a long time.

–Just in time to eat.

Imai: It’s really difficult. A discerning customer would say, “The avocado in the previous work was ripe, but the avocado this time is hard” (laughs).

–are there any other foods that you struggle to draw?

Imai: I don’t know, but it’s hard to draw the texture of peaches, like those hairs. There’s nothing in food that isn’t hard to do. I think it’s all difficult, but I’m doing it. But every time I paint, I want to make a better picture than the one I painted before, the one that has a good reputation. The clientele is getting tougher and tougher (laughs). It’s scary because it’s hard to lose your mind. Really, I’m out of control. We put a lot of effort into each and every piece. It’s good, but it doesn’t look delicious,” she realized.

–Are you quite a gourmand yourself, Mr. Imai?

Imai: Of course.

— Ahaha. So that’s what I thought.

Imai: My father is also a painter, but he is a much more voracious eater. Ever since I was a child. In the beginning, I was attracted to the skillfulness of the technique anyway. I’m look-ing at the grapes and the glass with a really good eye, but I’m gradually realizing that it’s good, but it doesn’t look delicious.

–It’s interesting.

Imai: But when I was looking at the Impressionist section of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, I came across Manet’s painting of asparagus. The still life paintings had a rather more academic impression than the Impressionists.

–Is it asparagus?

Imai: Mane has drawn a single white asparagus in a very small picture. It’s just a picture of white asparagus on a marble table. When I saw this, I was like, “Wow, that’s good. I draw fast and I don’t draw too much. But I learned that you can draw it so deliciously, too. As a child, I realized that the more I drew, the less good I was at it. From there, I quickly became interested in painters who could paint accurately and well.

–What other painters are there?

Imai: Velasquez, Spain. Velasquez depicts kings, their families, and children, but he dabbles in the velvet, satin, and other gorgeous clothing materials that the models wear. The other painters are very detailed. In the case of Velasquez, when you see it up close, it’s a mess, but when you see it from a distance, it comes across very carefully and realistically. Then there’s David Hockney, Vermeer and Jan van Eyck. Jan van Eyck is not a fast painter, but I was struck by the way he draws with such transparency that it seems to take in the air. I learned how to draw by watching the techniques of others who were good at drawing quickly, and I came to my current style of drawing.

–When was the first time you saw asparagus in Manet?

Imai: I think it’s the second half of elementary school. Since then, I’ve watched the same movie many times since I got into middle school and high school. My father was a Western-style painter, so I’ve had oil paintings, brushes, and charcoal lying around in the living room of my house since I was a child, and I’ve been using them since I was little, as if they were for fun. From around the first grade of elementary school, I went to a modeling class in a neighboring town. The teacher in that class was a very interesting person, and normally I would tell him to draw an apple or a flower in front of him, but he suddenly started by saying, “Let’s copy a picture from Henri Rousseau’s The Serpentess or Matisse’s Goldfish. The decisive “I guess I only have pictures” moment

–Did you always want to be a painter when you were a child?

Imai: I think the first time I wanted to be an artist was in junior high school. I didn’t want to be a painter, I wanted to be a professional painter and be able to make a living. I’m not going to go off on a tangent, but there’s a shop in the shopping street I often go to, and I used to admire the way they put the smooth seed into the mold, and the way they turned the oobayaki over and put the anko into the mold so skillfully.

–He said, “I’d like to make oobanyaki.”

Imai: I thought I couldn’t find a better job (laughs), so when I was in high school, I wanted to get a part-time job, so I hid behind a telephone pole for about three or four hours, trying to figure out when to say, “I want a part-time job. But I wasn’t very confident. I wear hearing aids and can talk to people in front of me by reading their mouth movements, but I can’t make a phone call. I guess that was around the time that pagers started coming out. It was a time when there was still no email. I can’t make a phone call, I can’t take an order for a large pancake, and I can’t order ingredients. I thought it would slow me down, so I thought about it more and more negative-ly, and in the end I couldn’t say, “I want a part-time job.

–I’ve been watching it for four hours.

Imai: Yes. I haven’t even told the store. During the time I spent behind that telegraph pole, I thought to myself, “I’ll never be able to work while communicating with other people. It was then that I decidedly thought, “I only have pictures. If it’s a painting, I can hone my skills because this is all I have to work with. I was also thinking realistically, “If I’m going to get a job, it’s going to be drawing that I’m good at. And most of all, I loved the pictures.

–Have you consulted with your family about your future?

Imai: My parents were worried about my future and thought that I should become an artist. I think that’s why they were so willing to take me abroad, and no one in my family was against it. I asked my mother, “I want to be a painter, how do I do that? When I asked him, he pulled out his town page and looked for a painting class. When my mother inquired at the local prep school, she was told that I was still in junior high school and that I was from high school, but I was forced to go in.

–How did it go?

Imai: My teacher was at a loss, but I decided to make a plaster sketch while I was still in high school. Normally, you have to draw carefully, but my mother told me that she borrowed some charcoal and paper and finished it quickly with a single line. I don’t remember it at all, though.

–It’s the same thing as drawing quickly, isn’t it?

Imai: I had no idea how to draw a plaster sketch correctly (laughs). And then the teacher said, “Would you like to join? I laughed bitterly. When I was a junior high school student, I only went to summer and winter classes during the long breaks. With that in mind, I went on to apply to art college. I was an oil painting major at Tama Art University.

–Why did you go on to graduate school, Mr. Imai?

Imai: I spent my college years in a relatively serious manner. I joined a figurative painting class and did oil paintings and sketches of nude models. The life of a painter goes on until the day you die, but the only time you get a chance to paint a naked model is while you’re in college. I thought so, so I only drew serious pictures. I still didn’t know what my painting was or what it was, and I didn’t seem to have any resistance to completing the tasks given to me.

–You were immersed in the production, weren’t you?

Imai: I would have liked to have graduated in college, but I was attracted to the spaciousness of the atelier on campus and the environment, and I didn’t have the courage to start my own business as an artist yet, so I went on to graduate school. He then proceeded to a doctoral program….. Make a production, draw a model you like by yourself, and write a paper. I spent a long time as a student, not knowing whether to be stoic or free.

–What kind of theme did you write your paper on?

Imai: I don’t want to remember too much because I’m embarrassed… (laughs). I really wanted to research Mane, which I love. However, I chose Balthus because my lab teacher advised me that I should study enigmatic authors. I really liked the early, challenging work. But “enigmatic” just didn’t sit right with me. I’m not enigmatic at all. It’s so clear (laughs).

–It didn’t feel right. Imai-san said it very well.

Imai: That’s right, I was frustrated in the middle of the doctoral program and withdrew at the end of the program. Let’s stop talking about negative history (laughs). After that, I started showing my work every year in solo exhibitions, and I’ve been doing that ever since.

Ulala Imai was born in 1982 in Kanagawa Prefecture. She left Tama Art University in 2009 and won the Kunio Honoe Jury Encouragement Prize at the Shell Art Prize in 2012. Her work has been used in advertisements and bookbinding for Toraya.