When I began this new series of paintings, it would be easy to credit the ‘Kimono’ exhibition at the V&A in Dundee as the obvious spark. And it was – but in a slightly oblique way.
In one of my sporadic attempts at the “Swedish death clean”, I'd put aside a box of books for the local charity shop. Among them was a rather ancient copy of ‘Utamaro, Colour Prints and Paintings’ featuring the beautiful work of the late Japanese Artist, Kitagawa Utamaro. I hadn’t looked at it for years but, with all the renewed interest in Japanese art (and perhaps nudged by that exhibition), I took it out of the box and began to leaf through it again.
If you like these new paintings, you'll be glad I did!
Drying and Stretching Cloth by Kitagawa Utamaro
The “floating world,” or ukiyo, once suggested Buddhist ideas of transience, but in the Edo period it came to describe the pleasure districts, theatres and teahouses of a rapidly expanding city.
It was a world devoted to beauty and display and ukiyo-e, “pictures of the floating world”, captured this atmosphere in woodblock prints – creating images that celebrated both the theatrical and the everyday.
One of the most notable Artists of the ukiyo-e tradition, Kitagawa Utamaro was best known for his bijin-ga prints – portraits of beautiful women that were not merely decorative; they were intimate studies of mood and interiority.
Cropped compositions, subtle colour harmonies, and heightened attention to gesture allowed him to capture not just appearance, but atmosphere. The pause between moments.
Various works by Kitagawa Utamaro
Looking again at the reproductions in the book, I was struck by how contemporary they felt. The cropping is bold, the compositions pared back, and the space is shallow, so attention is everything. Utamaro’s women are less characters in a scene than presences: self-contained; composed; and quietly sensual. The emphasis is not on action but on contemplation.
My Geisha painting draws quietly on this sensibility. It is less about costume or exoticism, and more about presence – about surface, pattern and the fragile balance between stillness and performance.
Like the Floating World itself, it recognises beauty as something experienced in time – observed, felt, and already beginning to drift.
The book, incidentally, did not make it to the charity shop. It is safely back on the bookshelf… at least until the next Swedish death clean!
Francis