"Joy, sorrow, suffering: all are born from the same place."
Deciding everything perfectly is not the only way forward. Sometimes, moving ahead while the answer is not yet clear is also an important part of life. Everyone already has "the power to guide themselves." And being kind to yourself is the true strength for taking flight into the future. I entrusted that thought to this canvas.
The Feeling in This Work
For those who want to believe in their power to guide themselves and set their true strength free. Along with lightness and warmth, I painted it intending "a sense of returning to your true self" and "the release of letting go of unnecessary burdens."
Concept & Background
People are often swept along by their emotions, compare themselves with others and carry too much heavy baggage. But in truth, everyone already has "the power to guide themselves." Joy, sorrow and suffering are all born from the same place. By embracing and integrating even the mismatch between feelings, ideals and reality, instead of cutting it away, I think people can move freely on to the next stage.
Technique, Color & Expression
Layering acrylics many times and scattering vivid pinks, yellows, greens and blues, I created a texture from which light seems to seep. The pointillist overlapping of colors symbolizes the many layers of emotion resonating deep in the heart. Building up many layers of color from the undercoat, I created delicately wavering light with sponges and brushes, and expressed "the freedom of moving forward without deciding" through colors that bleed into one another without borders.
On Making This Work
I put into it a prayer that viewers will listen once more to "the voice of their own heart" and regain the courage to believe in themselves. Deciding perfectly is not the only way forward; sometimes moving ahead without deciding is also part of freedom. Being kind to yourself is the strength to fly into the future: I entrusted that message to this canvas.
May this work help awaken the strength sleeping within you and set your heart free.
The same work cannot be delivered again, but with Personal Order Art, I paint a one-of-a-kind work just for you through a conversation with each person.About using the artwork
More about this painting
Painting with dots
In "the stars," I layered acrylic paint many times and scattered small dots of pink, yellow, green and blue.
A famous way of placing color in dots is pointillism, begun by the 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat. His masterpiece "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" (1884–1886) was painted not by mixing colors on the palette, but by placing small dots of color side by side so that they blend in the viewer's eye. It is now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Up close, just dots of color. A little further away, a scene full of light. A pointillist painting changes its expression depending on how far away you stand.
Each dot becomes a star
The stars in the night sky are each a small point of light. But together they become constellations, the Milky Way, a whole sky full of stars.
The overlapping dots of color in this painting represent the many emotions that resonate deep in the heart. Joy, loneliness, warmth — each one small, but layered together they create a landscape of light that belongs only to that person.
Time to look up at the stars
More and more places in Japan treasure the beauty of the night sky. The International Dark-Sky Association (now DarkSky International) certifies areas that protect exceptional starry skies as "Dark Sky Places," and in 2018 Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park in Okinawa became the first such place in Japan.
Protecting the starry sky also protects the lives of nocturnal creatures, and protects the time people spend looking up at the stars.
The stars within you
A great landscape is made of small points of light. Surely the small joys and small kindnesses of each day are the same.
I hope that whenever you see this painting, you remember the many small stars shining within you.
Sources
Art Institute of Chicago (Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884)
Ministry of the Environment, Japan (Dark Sky Park certification of Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park, 2018) — in Japanese
DarkSky International (International Dark Sky Places)
¥60,000
tax, frame & domestic shipping included
shipping outside Japan: flat ¥8,000
approx. USD $400
A one-of-a-kind original painting.
