"Whatever anyone thinks of you, if there are moments in your life and your days when you feel happy, then you have already won at life."
True happiness is not decided by results or success. It lies not in comparing yourself with someone, but in "being able to feel happy in this very moment." I painted it wishing that each time you look at it, your heart will feel relieved and warm, knowing that "happiness is already here."
The Feeling in This Work
For those who want to let go of fear in life, deepen their self-trust, and find true happiness for themselves.
I painted this art as a prayer for remembering that important thing.
Concept & Background
A work on the theme of "letting go of fear and nurturing self-trust." We often feel anxious about a future that has not yet happened, and stop actions that follow our intuition halfway. But I think true happiness is not decided by results; it dwells in "the moments when you feel happy now." There is no need to compare yourself with anyone; those who can savor those moments have already won at life.
Technique, Color & Visual Expression
I composed the canvas by layering colors again and again with a rubbing touch. With blue and green as the base, I inserted yellow, red and purple, expressing a depth in which light and shadow intersect. I deliberately left out concrete forms so that each viewer can connect it with the feelings and memories sleeping deep in their heart.
On Making This Work
So that those who stand before this work can trust the straightforward feelings within them and keep walking without being shaken by anxiety. I put into it the message that you do not need to try to control future results, and that you can trust actions born from intuition.
I hope it becomes a chance to find "a light beyond fear" in the work and remember the courage to believe in yourself.
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
The painter who kept painting the water's surface
In "Signpost on the water," I built on blue and green, adding touches of yellow, red and purple to create the depth of a water surface where light and shadow meet.
A painter known for painting light on water is the French Impressionist Claude Monet. Monet created a garden with a pond at his home in Giverny outside Paris, and for nearly 30 years until the end of his life he painted the water lilies floating on it, and the sky and light reflected on its surface. His "Water Lilies" series is said to number about 250 works.
At the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, Monet's large "Water Lilies" panels surround the walls of two oval rooms. Monet is said to have hoped the work would become a place to calm the hearts of those who saw it.
Painting light without form
In Monet's later years, his water lily paintings lost their clear forms until only color and light shimmered on the canvas.
In this painting, too, I deliberately did not paint any concrete forms. The surface of water reflects the sky, the light, and the face of whoever looks into it. Because it has no form, each viewer can lay their own reflection and feelings over it.
Signposts on the water
Long ago, people traveling rivers and seas by boat found their way by markers set in the water, lights on the shore, and the positions of the stars.
On the Mogami River, which flows through Yamagata where I live, boats loaded with rice and safflower came and went in the Edo period, and from the port of Sakata the goods were carried to distant towns by the Kitamaebune ships. Roads on the water were also roads connecting people and towns.
Your signpost
When you feel lost and do not know which way to go, the answer may not be far away, but reflected in your heart like the surface of still water.
I would be happy if this painting could be a small signpost lighting the way ahead for you.
Sources
Musée de l’Orangerie (Claude Monet, Water Lilies)
Teikoku Databank Yamagata Branch (Yamagata long-established companies survey 2024, on Mogami River transport and the Kitamaebune) — in Japanese
¥60,000
tax, frame & domestic shipping included
shipping outside Japan: flat ¥8,000
approx. USD $400
A one-of-a-kind original painting.
