Ten Masks
Filed in:Galleries Ten Masks
in sunlight and shadows... in moonlight and candles... ten masks
Japanese artists would paint screens to be viewed in different lights.. in sunlight, in shadow, in moonlight and in candlelight. Or so I read in a magazine at the beauty parlor, you never know where the big ideas will come from. All of the mask paintings have the same basic composition, the mask and horizon line is positioned in the same place, the features of the face all measured to the same dimensions. The difference is light and shadow and how it can fall on a face and change the expression. I thought it would be challenging to use a mask to express feelings, hiding behind the mask... our true emotions.
I got the idea for the mask series many years ago. I painted the first mask painting maybe sixteen years ago. Then I had a baby and built a house, I did not paint during this busy time.And then a series of unfortunate events in my life left me feeling lost. I decided to have an exhibit, painting would be my therapy. I never forgot about the mask painting and decided to repaint it. It started with despair where many journeys of discovery begin, rock bottom. As I would finish one painting the next one would appear like a vision. I finished all ten paintings in an eight month period and had an exhibition. I completed other paintings but nothing has meant more to me.I recently dusted them off and decided to make a movie useing my new art tool, the computer, to give them a new life.
The "Mask" series is inspired by the Japanese Noh theater. Noh is a kind of symbolic drama, the actors perform while wearing masks. It's themes concentrate on human destiny rather than events. It is performed on a very simple stage, and it has developed into a highly stylized art.
Rather than explain the meaning of every symbol in the paintings, I like to hear how the viewers interprete them themselves.
I was very surprised when I had an exhibit that two television stations and a newspaper reporter showed up for interviews since I am a complete nobody. During my exhibit, people kept trying to touch my paintings to see if they were really flat...I kid you not! I even caught two middle aged women scratching one to see if it was a pastel, luckily not or it would of been damaged. It was strange, this behavior was most disappointing to me and I felt like I was on guard at a museum during the exhibit. I have been discouraged to have another exhibit since.
I did enter one painting (5 love) in a juried art exhibit at a big important museum in Tokyo and the judge wrote me a lovely note about making the roses more realistic. I did appreciate that he took the time to write me some words of encouragement, even though I felt he missed the point that my paintings are not about realism. Isn't it obvious? My painting was also returned deliberately defaced, in such a way that it could only of been deliberate. Someone put a red dot on the forehead like they do in India, a third eye. Someone's idea of a joke I suppose though I didn't find it very funny and I detest unprofessional behavior. After that I pretty much gave up on exhibits in Japan.
I did try to exhibit in America and thought it would be great to exhibit with a real mask artist. I asked a few and they politely turned me down. Too expensive without a sponsor and they were right , these things should not be entered into lightly and would anyone really show up to make it worth the effort? So I gave up on that too.
I use to have the whole collection hanging on the first floor of my house but Japanese children found them so scary that sometimes they would even burst into tears ( again I'm not kidding ) so I kind of gave up on that and they are now hanging in a secret location.
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The "Mask" series was inspired by the Japanese Noh Theater. To learn about Noh please try this site:
http://jguide.stanford.edu/site/noh_428.html