Ayako Nakamura

My grandmother spent her entire life wearing kimono, but in my own life, I have only worn kimono a handful of times. Not so long ago, every Japanese home had tatami mats for flooring. My home does not have a tatami room. Unthinkingly, we have thrown away so much of the cultural heritage that should have been passed on to the future. My paintings are of “what was not possible, but what could have been in Japan.”
It is a shame that we have lost the manners and customs that can be seen in the ukiyoe drawings and scrolls from olden days.
If we had been a little wiser, the landscape of this country might have been different. That is the landscape that I want to paint. A landscape that is fertile, oddly confused and, strangely bright. A world that no one has seen. I think that blue and red are the colors best suited to representing that world. If I were to use the normal range of colors, it would become an ordinary scene. For that same reason I paint rabbits not humans. The real world today is harsh. At the very least, in my paintings, I want to create a bright world.