I always have the same theme at the bottom of my heart. It is to express what people cannot see and cannot express, such as space, air, time, and distance. I always try to depict the colorless transparency that exists between the eye and the object, rather than using objects as a medium for unrealistic expression.

When I turn the calendar around, there is always a new landscape there. I am glad to go through several seasons, as if something I had forgotten comes back to my heart. There is light, shadow, and color in the wind that brushes my cheek. And I want to capture something like a fragrance in the landscape. I want to draw the heart of nature.   Mikiko Noji HP http://nojimikiko.jp/

Makoto Fujii (b. 1984) creates works on the theme of “Japanese realism”, which is neither Japanese nor Western painting, and is at once new and nostalgic. Just as Impressionist painters were once inspired by Japanese ukiyoe and pioneered new expressions, Fujii is once again seeking a fusion of Japan and the West in the modern age. He chooses “water” as a motif to depict the shimmering formless things with oil paint, and continues to paint them because he is attracted by the fascination and figurative beauty of the way they change every time he paints them. It has become an important existence for the artist who aims to express the feeling of formless things that sway in the wind and change color depending on the light. I want to create works of art that will be treasured by people in the future, when they find them hundreds of years after my death, in a completely different language and culture. I want to express the universal strength that lies

I mainly create works using cats and people as motifs. I hope I could touch someone’s heartstrings by sublimating what I am attracted to and what I find fragile and beautiful into my works through my own filter.   Masaaki Hikita HP http://www.masaakihikida.com/

When I paint a picture, my own feeling is that it is similar to an excavation process. When I paint the center of a picture, the colors for the other four corners have already been decided. It is also a work like grasping a vague memory in my hand. It seems contradictory, but surprisingly it is not so. Like digging in the earth, I add paint layer by layer as if scooping out water.

I continue to paint water as a motif. This is because I am fascinated by the mystery and power of life-giving water. In my paintings, both the rich curves and the legal straight lines created by nature are equally encompassed in one organic world. Flowers, goldfish, and seaweed are also depicted as happy symbols around water, and I want to infuse my work with the aesthetic and fundamental sense of color that they reflect in the water. Kaoru Kan HP https://www.kaorukan.com/