NYAB Event - Namiyo Kubo “Water Series Vol. 24”

Namiyo Kubo “Water Series Vol. 24”

Viridian Artists, Inc.

This event has ended.

Viridian Artists presents the new work of Tokyo artist Namiyo Kubo. Her exhibition of painting on paper entitled “Water Series Vol. 24”.

This will be Namiyo Kubo’s fourth solo exhibit at Viridian Artists. The artist has again filled the gallery walls with large collages of painted paper that put the viewer in the midst of a watery world. With intense color and the rippled painted paper, the artist creates the textured surface of oceans and perhaps clouds. One sees hints of buildings and light and of water, but we cannot be sure of what we are seeing nor can we be sure of what the artist was looking at or thinking of when she created the work.

Namiyo’s new work was inspired by travel to India & the Taj Mahal. She found herself charmed by the ancient art and color there and the works reflect that memory. The reds and golds are reminiscent of the sunsets and dawns that shine brilliantly there, glowing in the light.

In the past, Kubo’s paintings were about nature, particularly water but also about cities and the human-made world. The “light” of stars, meteors, electricity reflecting off the waves & ripples of water reveal the cities of the world. The silhouettes of skyscrapers & the lights of Tokyo, Shanghai, London, New York City and other cities one can almost recognize by the shapes she has conjured. The artist “sees” twelve lights on the oceans of the Earth and the spirituality inherent in the symbol of light & water, of rebirth, discovery & unity is especially critical in our time of tsunamis, political and religious strife and nuclear disasters. Despite the calamities of our times, this ambitious artwork reminds us that meteors, falling stars and “oceans of light” are signs of the enormity of and power in the Universe.

Namiyo Kubo is active in Japan creating murals, working with children in Iwate and doing much volunteer work in connection with art and the recent disaster in Northern Japan. Knowing that about her, one cannot help but search for vestiges of those experiences in the work. Though masked in the beauty of her colors and the expressive surface of the paintings, one cannot help but see the pain that often underlies beautiful art objects.

Media

• Painting
• Drawing

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