abstractart

Evening Walk

The other day, on the way home, I dropped by a jazz restaurant in Osaka. The live show was a standard jazz vocal performance. It started with “My Funny Valentine”, a sad song, but moved to good love songs such as “Day and Night” and others. The room was buzzing with vibrant energy.

Unlike my neighborhood walk, in the big city, I walk through the underground busy street, almost as if I was following an endless stream of people. But I came across an uplifting moment like a burst of firework that I could never experience in my usual evening walk.

The painting below is titled “Evening Walk”, acrylic on canvas, 36”x47”, 2025, ©Kikuko Sakota Art

Something Different(2)

Another attempt was collage.  It took some time to collect materials: photos, flowers to make pressed flowers, plastic tape to transfer photos on it, colored paper, tracing paper, etc.  Also organizing my idea for collage composition was tougher than I thought.  But I tried not to think too hard and made a few works.  Here’s one. I picked a tropical parrot as a main role. 

Untiled, Collage, 24”x29”, 2025, ©Kikuko Sakota Art

Something Different (1)

This summer I tried something different from usual: Oil painting and collage.

I used oil paints for the first time in ten years.  They do not dry quickly like acrylic paints, so I felt impatient.  While struggling, paints became muddy on canvas.  After a few failures, I made several oil paintings.  The below is one of them.  

Untitled, Oil on canvas, 9”x11”, 2025 ©Kikuko Sakota Art

Tears of the Sun

Taking a walk in the sun, as usual, suddenly I remembered my late father. My tears were almost coming down.

I wasn’t sad, but I just remembered him fondly. I felt like the sun and sky were looking at me

The painting below is “Tears of the Sun”, Acrylic on canvas, 21”x26”, 2024, ©Kikuko Sakota Art

Soar up

The year 2024 started with a big quake hit Noto Peninsula Japan Sea. So far more than 200 people were killed, about 50 people’s safety is unknown, about 3,000 households are isolated and in total about 25,000 are evacuated. It is one of the most coldest time so even though safely evacuated, it may not be comfortable to stay in the evacuation center. For now what I can think of is to provide some contributions to the area. Many of us experienced a few earthquakes and its hard time so if not contributions or food supplies, we can always extend our feelings, empathy, encouragement, and love. to the sky and reach out to the people in the disaster area.

The painting below is titled,” Soar up” Acrylic on canvas,24”x29”, 2024 ©Kikuko Sakota Art

Four Elements

Actors: Viridian, Quinacridone red, Hansa yellow, Ivory black, and Titanium white

When I was thinking about characters for painting, I thought of four elements, and looked into Wikipedia and I found it was the ancient Greek and Roman belief that everything is made of four elements, such as earth, water, air and fire.

I used the colors above mixing to act as earth, water, air, and fire with no playscript.  I picked up the colors that I have avoided to use, which were viridian, and black.  I focused on mixing viridian with others, but next time I would like to pay more attention to gray and black.

The painting below is Four Elements 24”x29” acrylic on canvas, 2023,©Kikuko Sakota Art

Gypsy

I was moved by the performance of the gypsy jazz band when I happened to listen to them.  The band consists of only strings: a violin, guitars, and a bass.  A guitar and a violin are main solo instruments.  If I did not know it was categorized as a jazz, I thought it was a flamenco-like Latin music.  Soaking in this music makes me feel like wander lust, or traveling to “see the world”, as the lyrics of Lady Gaga’s “Gypsy” goes.

The painting below is titled, “Gypsy”, acrylic on canvas, 21”x18”, 2023, ©Kikuko Sakota Art