The heart of painters, the desire to see beautiful things together!

The heart of painters, the desire to see beautiful things together!

  ​When we go on a trip or find something special in our everyday life, we try to take a photo and leave it behind for long memories. Sometimes you save images for yourself and want to see them later, but most of the time you want to show them to others such as family, friends and share the memories with them. So am I. Even in my dreams, when I see something so beautiful and fantastic, I go through my bag and say, "Oh, where's my camera?" 

  ​In this way, people have a heart to show something. We want to share that feeling together and enjoy the moments. Sometimes I take pictures to tell the world something. In the same way, so are the painters. There are probably not many painters who paint only to see and enjoy painting for themselves. There are some unique painters like that.

  ​Henry Dager, a painter who died in 1973, lived in poverty and loneliness for the rest of his life, and died without revealing his work to the world. When he died, his homeowner found his works by chance while cleaning out the house and opened an exhibition for the deceased. Dager, who had been a loner for the rest of his life, moved the world he had envisioned in his head alone through writing and painting over the past 60 years. Among the illustrations containing the contents of the novel, a 10-meter-long watercolor was also included. The landlord, who had originally planned to move in a new tenant after tidying up Dager's room, paid attention to the artistic value of Dager's works. The homeowner, a famous photographer, organized his work and held his first exhibition in 1977, and also released a documentary film about the Danger.

Henry Dager, Untitled (Strangled child in the sky), MoMA

  ​In the case of Henry Dager, he hated his artworks to the public, so he wrote that anyone who took his work away would be cursed after death. But such painters are very rare. Most of them capture the emotions, philosophies, realizations, and discoveries they felt, draw pictures and love to show them to people.

  ​Without this kind of heart, it would probably be impossible to paint in your own studio or room for so many years without the approval or reward of others.

  ​So am I. The starting point for painting was because I wanted to show the dream I had. I picked up a brush because there was no way to express colors, feelings, and beauty that could not be expressed in words in my dreams.

  ​That is why, seeing the sparkling works of other artists, it seems to convey the joy, hilarityand emotion they must have felt, and sometimes despair and sadness. In particular, recently, I have come to discover such works that sparkle like jewels, sometimes as distant as a dream.

   ​Since the 1980s, artist Richard Thorn has been painting the coastline landscapes of Devon and Cornish in the South West of England in watercolor. When you look at his paintings, the waves of the sea surrounding beach sparkle in the sunlight, as if they were sprinkled with silver powder. Especially when I pass through the forest, I also feel the purple energy, but I found the same feeling in his paintings of forests among his works. An artist who captures the sparkling beauty of the sea and nature.

  ​American painter john salminen, born in 1945, is a painter who mainly painted urban landscapes with watercolors. But personally, I like his urban work, but the scene in which he portrays trees is very impressive. The lonely but dignified energy shown by the bare branches that have fallen off in winter can be felt in his paintings. And I especially like the work that depicts the daily life of Americans. It depicts the everyday situations that are common in the United States. The artist's own viewpoint shows that it is a city in a quiet concrete building, but it has its own color.
​(image source: https://stremmelgallery.com/artists/john-salminen/)

  ​Kanta Harusaki is a Kumamoto-born Japanese watercolor artist who started watercolor painting at the age of 32. He knows the most transparent light colors and how to convey light and space skillfully and reliably.

  ​Looking at their paintings, I wonder what the limits of human expression are. When I look at the point of view of things, the ability to catch the beauty, and the talent to put it all together and express it with one brush, I also paint, but I feel infinitely small in front of these masters.