"Time" Yumika January 2014, 1 - January 14, 2014
Venue: Art Gallery T+
Date: January 2014, 1 (Tuesday) - January 14, 2014 (Thursday)
Exhibitor: Yumika Toume (2nd year student, Japanese Painting, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences)
This exhibition features Japanese paintings. Life and death. Circulation and flow. The theme is the never-ending moment of time.
I hope to portray the character as if searching for a clear sense of breathing and a sparkle that is brimming with light.
T+review
Japanese painting is a field that is difficult to describe in a single word. The term "Japanese painting" itself was coined during the Meiji period to distinguish art unique to Japan from "Western painting" that was brought in from overseas. When one thinks of Japanese painting, one may generally associate it with subjects and materials such as ink painting, portraits of beautiful women, and themes such as flowers, birds, the wind, and the moon. The pale colors of the thin paint, the light and dark shades of ink, and the open white space...However, her exhibition was a little different from the world of Japanese painting that is commonly thought of.
I was overwhelmed by the works that were created on the theme of life and death, and the ceaseless flow of time. The layers of heavy mineral pigments and their lingering effects leave a pleasant impression on the viewer.
I think the greatest appeal of mineral pigments is the depth of the overlapping sand and the particles that sparkle when hit by light. There is a reason why a big gap has arisen between the Japanese painting we have in our minds and contemporary Japanese painting. I think the reason for this is the development of many new pigments. The reason why Japanese painting in the past was good at expressing space by making use of the shades of ink is simply because there were only a few pigments that could be used. This may be an extreme way of putting it, but the challenge for Japanese painting in the past was how to express things within a limited number of colors. It can be said that this is no different in contemporary Japanese painting. On the other hand, the challenge for contemporary Japanese painting is how to sublimate the various pigments created using modern technology into expressions.
During these two days, I felt the definite breath of the rapidly changing contemporary Japanese painting in her work. (Ota Natsuki)
