Omomuki Painting
(warm feeling)
おもむきは、風景の中で幸せに感じるものを観察すると、
暖かい感覚を意味する日本語の単語です。
Omomuki is a Japanese
word meaning warm feeling when observing something that makes you feel
happy in the landscape.
This
series of artworks of the seductive and beautiful Japanese plum blossoms were
constructed in the late winter in my Akashi studio, the memories are from
around Akashi/Kansai ports, throughout the heavy/light industries, densely
populated apartment/housing areas with its intermittent crammed rice paddies in
the valleys between.
This recent experimental installation/collaboration between the
Ikebana artist Rinako Inoue and my paintings at the Runa Gallery eventuated due
to a conversation I had with a Japanese lady, for she related to me;
That in olden times before the Tokugawa period on walls
of a castle various animals were rendered in sumi – e (Japanese ink painting) and one image was that of a monkey. And during
those bygone times large flower arrangements would be placed within the
building and the audience could walk around it and view it from various
positions. In some of these views one could see the painted monkey on the
wall looking back at them through the flower display.
This aforementioned historical sensation of the sumi - e monkey peering back
through the freshly arranged flowers appealed to me, but in this exhibition,
there is no wildlife only the hard/heavy industry terrains of Japan with its
heavily populated areas of small houses and apartments, along with intermittent
rice paddies around the Akashi region, along with the occasional ume (plum) in
bloom on the very cold days at the end of Japanese winter, which when sighted
always gives me this warm feeling (Omomuki).
These areas of industrial, fishing, farming
environments around my studio in Akashi are not what one might called
traditionally picturesque but they're to me, it is where my studio is located
and it’s always a great joy to walk along and see the floral slices ume trees of what I
consider great beauty.
I like the ume flower it doesn’t bloom so majestically like the
cherry blossoms of Japan but it still has this unique aesthetic that I enjoy
and want to paint, no matter where it situated in Akashi or surrounding terrains.
This exhibition is my first collaborative attempt at portraying
these ume flower sensations from Akashi with a ikebana artist, here are some
of the results, which I can build on in the future, as currently I am
thinking maybe a bigger installation both in painting and flower arrangement but for now please enjoy these images, thank you
