Year: 2019
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 227.3 x 181.8 cm (89 1/2 x 71 1/2 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022
Plum blossoms bloom around February, during the harsh cold of winter. They are also known as “Hyakka no Sakigake,” or “the harbinger of a hundred flowers.” They announce spring is around the corner, taking their time to blossom and emanating their aroma. In Makiko Kudo’s monograph, “Reborn as Air,” she reflects on this work and writes that she loved seeing plum blossom trees at night. During this season, the nights are cold, and the piercing air comes forth from the surface of the painting. A pale blue figure walks between the red and white plum blossoms, with a rooster on their head for some inexplicable reason. The red and white plum blossoms slightly warm the winter night’s icy landscape with a subtle pink hue. If plum blossoms are flowers that signify the heralding of early spring, the rooster is the bird that announces the dawn with its crowing. Although the figure’s expression remains tense and stiff, surely entertaining the vague hope that the long winter and dark nights will soon end, it will gradually break into a smile with the arrival of spring.
