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 From my earliest school days through to the end of college、I drew pictures during most of my classes to keep awake; It may be that I have some degree of talent for art, but I do/ did spend a lot of time (here, there, in-between) practicing. I wanted to study art at school but,… didn’t. I knew it was something I would always be doing, but I also knew I could develop it on my own.
I went to Japan to see what it was like. I liked enough of what I saw to live there for the past 5 years. Now I live in the mountains near Nagano. I paint outside whenever the weather permits. When it`s particularly cold/ dark/ windy/ or rainy I paint flowers indoors, or go outside and explore. I spend a lot of time looking for places with a certain 'energy' to them, and when I find those places/ those things, I go back – to paint. Because I paint in crowded far off areas: swamps, forests, and from mountain tops, I can only carry smaller canvasses. I find that oil paint works best on shorter excursions, but as it`s difficult to carry home safely over long distances, I use acrylic paint on those occasions.
I`m not so much concerned with how much a picture looks like what it depicts, but I want for my pictures to feel the way that I feel when I`m there. Even when the picture looks different, there is an honesty in it, which I have come to appreciate. The colors I use for this purpose are characteristically bold. They are as much what is clearly visible, as they are a 'feeling' I have – of something lurking deep in the scenery.
Things are not things, so much as they are expressions of energy. Trees, for instance, are not merely “trees”, but a growing, breathing, reaching presence. When I stand to watch and paint this, I make a small identifying mark on the front, and sign/ date/ title the back of each piece. This preserves the composition I`ve worked so hard on. |
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