InterviewFeatured Artist

watercolor painting
Handsome and handsome
Profile
The sensibility born from the world of design turned into landscape sketches by chance, and eventually came to fruition into the delicate and rich expression of transparent watercolor. While receiving numerous awards and teaching, his goal is to "enrich the soul." The "hidden heart" hidden in the work gently encourages the viewer to become aware and creates a quiet resonance. The scenery in everyday life shines with a new brilliance and leaves a lingering impression on the viewer's heart.
Departure from Aioi Port
Please tell us about your "encounter with painting".

I've loved painting since I can remember. I was not good at exercise, so I preferred to draw by myself. In the past, there wasn't much paper, so it was like drawing on the ground. Also, my father was working on ship design, and he would bring back blue-burnt drawings that I no longer needed, so I used the white background on the back of the book instead of a graffiti book. When I was in elementary school, there was a time when I wanted to become a manga artist, such as drawing Osamu Tezuka's works because Astro Boy was popular.

Therefore, when I was little, I drew various pictures, including manga, rather than landscape paintings. Also, when I painted, everyone was happy, so I liked painting. When I was in junior high school, I joined the art club, and that was when I started looking at things and drawing for the first time. After entering high school, my senior in the art club often drew plaster drawings for art college entrance exams, so I only drew plaster every day for three years of high school.

After that, he entered art school. Did you already have the consciousness to pursue an artistic path?

I had an image of going to art school. At that time, I wanted to be a designer.

When I entered Osaka University of the Arts, I had to do design in general in my first year, and I had to choose between graphic and interior products from my second year. When I entered university, I wanted to be a graphic designer, but I ended up going into interior design.

In the 1970s, it seemed that the interior was more difficult to eat (laughs). If it's interior design, there are graphic elements as well, so I went that way. In my graduation project, I worked on an interior design issue, won the Grand Prix, and joined Kokuyo because I could do office design.

Basking in the light, cherry blossoms at Hamarikyu
Did office design not have many opportunities to draw?

I did perspective sketches, but never draws. There was a reason why I started painting. In the 1970s~80s, I would take pictures when I went out somewhere with a compact camera. At that time, waist pouches were popular, so I put the camera in and only took pictures of the scenery, but in 1984 the camera was stolen...

It was a waste of money to buy a new camera, so I put a postcard-sized sketchbook in the waist pouch instead of the camera. Then I started sketching instead of taking pictures. If the camera hadn't been stolen, I wouldn't have been able to draw again, so now that I think about it, I'm grateful to the person who stole it (laughs).

In addition to winning various awards for drawing, it seems that you are also active as a lecturer.

When I showed about 500 postcard-sized works I drew to the teacher of my wife's colored pencil class, he recommended that I open a watercolor sketching class, and I started teaching pen watercolor sketches in 2009. This led me to start painting in earnest with large-scale paintings.

In the classroom, based on the model I drew, everyone finished the color in two hours, and in order to prepare the model, I also started drawing F0 size pictures. Instead of the waist pouch I had used before, I started putting a sketchbook in my work bag and drawing one when I went on a business trip and going home, and my stock kept accumulating. And when I visited a solo exhibition of landscape paintings in Kyobashi in 2014, the painter who was exhibiting at the exhibition saw the stock, which led to an exhibition at a public exhibition, a membership in the Pacific Art Association, a prize at the Nippon Exhibition, etc., and the expansion of my activities after that.

Komyoji Temple, lotus pond
Do you currently see it as an issue or your future aspirations?

When I paint a large picture with transparent watercolor, it is really difficult to express the sky.

In the part of finishing the wide sky with just a brush, I think that there is still a lack of training in expressions such as cloud bleeding and blurring. In that sense, it is profound because the expression changes depending on how the water is used, how the water is used, how the brush is used, and how the same water is used. There is no end to art, and there is no end to it. I always think that there is still a long way to go, and I have never thought that this is good.

 When I return to my parents' house, I draw a nearby landscape. It's a really small town in Aioi in Hyogo Prefecture, close to Okayama in the Seto Inland Sea, but when I return to the countryside, I always think that even in places I usually pass by casually, if you look at it from a different perspective, there are many very picturesque scenery. It's a casual scenery around us, but if you change your perspective, it becomes a very heart-wrenching landscape. I want people to know how to look at it by drawing it.

 As mentioned in Hiroshi Senju's book, the word "beauty" in art is written as "the sheep is big". In the past, it was a symbol of "abundance" because it meant that if the sheep were large, they would not have any trouble eating, and it seems to represent "beauty" = "rich heart". When I was working in office design, I was working with the intention of creating an office space that would enrich the hearts of the people who work there, and I also want to draw works that enrich the hearts of the viewers.

 

 This is the one I am exhibiting at Japan Bridge Art, and everything I draw in reality has a hidden heart mark. It is okay for people to enjoy seeing such things, or to take their time to appreciate them and make various discoveries, so it would be best if my work would lead to the enrichment of everyone's hearts.

Interview: 2025/08/01