Soy Sauce Art

Art and the history of art is a recurrent theme in Ozawa’s body of work including Soy Sauce

Art series which started in 1999. Soy Sauce Art series mocks Western and Japanese

masterpieces, using the medium of soy sauce, the most accessible yet integral condiment in

Japan. Ozawa considers that the flavor of soy sauce even appeals to the DNA of Japanese. By

presenting masterpieces using soy sauce, such as Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and Millet’s The

Sower, Soy Sauce Art series examines the impacts of Western art and modernization on

Japanese everyday life. Other pieces in the series, such as Soy Sauce Art: Roy Lichtenstein,

juxtapose the formal and thematic aspects of Western art in a style of Japanese art. Soy

Sauce Art series reflects the struggles and the current status of Japanese art and society in

general. No matter how much Japanese are westernized, there are things such as soy sauce

which Japanese instinctively pleased with. It is also a kind of frustration that no matter how

well Japanese artists study art history of the West, their identity cannot be found in the

western context of art.