A Water Pump Connection – New Paintings – Exhibition

My “Covid-19 series” of paintings is over. They got nothing to do with it. They don´t reflect my emotions or emotions of people around me. They follow the line of experimental works started in 2019 that were helping me to broaden my spectrum of paintings and also help me prepare for new, larger series. Lockdown helped me be more concentrated on my work and this shows in a number of paintings I did in the last 6 months. I usually do around 6 paintings per year, while now I did 12 in half of the year. And that is about it. I will not call this Covid-19 series but rather, along with paintings from 2019, the Flower Viewing (Hanami) series. But let me introduce new works.

Plum Blossoms and the Moon after Hokusai

I did this view for the new apartment of our family friends. They wanted something for their bedroom but in the end the painting was well received and ended up being displayed in the living room.

Blue Green Olga

Blue Green Olga is a continuation of (I Think Her Name’s) Debra story. I wanted to see if I could develop and reproduce unique bijinga style in my own way. If I continue this series it will be called Nana after my friend Nana Monda whose works have inspired me to start doing bijinga. I want to thank her for letting me use her name. ありがとうございます

Beyond Raging Waves

This is my big finish for this series, a mind blowing hyper detailed Hokusai style dot. You know, like atthe end of the sentence. I put my remaining energy into this, aiming for the full burnout.

Bonus – Dia Luna… Dia Pena

Just when I thought that I am done for now and that I can throw myself into a beautiful summer laziness and chill outs at my family house in Gradačac, I´ve got commissioned to do the family portrait. I am really proud that I did it although I was already exhausted.

Two water pumps connection

Due to very bad situation during the summer with the spikes of Covid-19 cases in the Balkans and very bad picture entirely in the whole Europe, including Turkey, we decided to spend our summer vacation at my family country house in Gradačac. And it was fantastic. We had a small pool to cool off, fresh food from gardens, fresh eggs, cheese, butter and milk and, for example, if you wanted to have a fruit you just needed to go and pick it up from a fruit tree. Apples and pears were fantastic and plums needed a few more days to ripen entirely.  And yes, we also have hazelnuts, and of course, there was a squirrel and a woodpecker as our first neighbors.  In the morning my daughter would go to greet a cow that gave us milk and hens that gave us eggs, and a dog who was there to play with. In the evening we would take strolls and greet horses. A couple of times we went to two artificial lakes to have more easy days than usual. My heart was back to Japan, to Chiba, back to the Valley of the Wind Farm (Tanbo no Gakko – Rice Field School) a place that reminded me of my country house in Gradačac while being in Japan. And although they are very much different at the same time they are the same to me. If you haven´t grown up by the manual water pump n you don´t remember cold fresh water that it brings in the hot (atsui) days.  This old water pump in my house always takes me back to Chiba, to the point that I am thinking of making my own Valley of the Wind Farm in Gradačac.

Exhibition

I know this might sound strange but I took additional break from painting in September. I built storage room in our basement.  I am rearranging my atelier and fixing what needs to be fixed, and I am preparing to start my new big series of paintings named Heaven’s Gonna Burn Your Eyes. While taking a break I also did online digital exhibition in the City Museum Zenica,  my hometown. I took this opportunity to make a digital review of my past two years and to share it with everyone. And in October I am doing a real exhibition of 16 works done in 2019/2020 in the City Gallery Bihać.

In conclusion

Life in pandemic turned out to be not so bad. Slowing down actually brought a much bigger productivity in my case. Also, it gave me the time to make some new long term plans with my wife. Of course we missed having some friends from abroad but I think this gave us an opportunity to stop taking those friends and their visits for granted. How easily the entire world slowed down to the feeling of the almost absolute halt- I think German word for stop has more meaning in this case than stillness.

As always, I hope you are all alive and kicking,

That you are in love and loved,

And that bill is paid and there is food on the table,

Peace, Love

Udon and Sake

Muha

pS. Special warm wishes go to Ueda Kayoko sensei, my son´s first teacher, who retired this year. I wish you and your garden many fruitful years together.

2019/20