9/26/2022 Landscape with a Story (Exhibition held during the COVID-19 Crisis)

An exhibition of a Western-style painter (introduced in August 2021 on this blog) was again held at the Hankyu Department Store of Umeda main store in Osaka City in September 2022 for the first time in two years. I visited the exhibition several times including the first day of the exhibition accompanying friends and acquaintances as a guide.

The theme of the exhibition was "landscapes with stories", and about 40 paintings were exhibited, including paintings in which cute bears and cats appear. It is said that the painter admired the style of the American landscape painter Robert Wood, which was displayed at the entrance hall of her childhood house when she was an elementary school girl. She then began painting landscapes with an influence of Wood’s style. It seems; however, she has added her own mysterious aspect to it, and it is gaining popularity among the general public in Japan.

About two months before her exhibition, the Nichiyo-kai exhibition, "Nichiyo-ten", was held at the Takarazuka City Cultural Arts Center in Hyogo Prefecture. Each of the works exhibited by each artist was large, about 100 in size (1620 cm x 1300 cm or 1620 cm c 970 cm), thus all of them had a certain dynamics and power due to its size.

A painting by this artist exhibited at the "Nichiyo-ten" held during the COVID-19 crisis titled

"When I think of calm days"

The painter is Ms. Mari Ariga.