This series, Yin Yang: A Japanese Experience, follows an invitation to speak at exhibitions at the Nagasaki Peace Museum and the Inocho Paper Museum in Japan. My journey took me from Tokyo on the main island of Honshū to Nagasaki, Kyūshū and then onto Kochi on the island of Shikoku and many places in between. Many thanks to Canada Council for their support.
Inspired by this, my first exposure to eastern culture, these works probe the Zen aesthetic of balance; the principles and laws that comprise the very essence of our visual experience. My aim is to evoke the spirit of Japan by achieving a unity of composition and an aesthetic equilibrium through the exploitation of the antipodean properties of form, colour, volume and mass.
I visited Hiroshima as well as Nagasaki and was deeply moved by the experience. The crane paintings draw inspiration from the highly colourful paper cranes that surround the memorial of a remarkable little girl, Sadako Sasaki, iin the Peace Park at Hiroshima. They are a symbol of hope.
The series ends with The Bird of Dawning Singeth... and In Flight Fragments developed from a photograph of the paper cranes taken at Hiroshima. As these pieces have evolved, they have taken off, metamorphisized, and have given birth to wings of their own.
yin yang: a Japanese experience
Hiroshima Staircase I
intaglio & chine collé
3 in x 6.3 in
All images are the property of Gillian Armitage © 2020
