Yoshino 1977

Okumura Togyu made ‘Yoshino’ with watercolour or ink, blurring the lines of the landscape with an expert hand. The haziness of the mountain range, fading into one another, makes you think about how we see and perceive the world. Up close, you can see how the washes of color blend, almost like a memory fading at the edges. It's the kind of painting that makes you feel something, a longing maybe, or a sense of peace. The paint is so thin in places it almost disappears, then gathers in the foreground. Look how the solid green in the bottom left seems to hold the whole image up. Those white blossoms look light, as if a breeze might blow them away. This piece reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings, where color and canvas become one, it makes you think about transience, how everything is always changing, and how art can capture that fleeting moment.