Interview with Hikari -a fabulous Japanese Painter

Literary Revelations is thrilled to bring you an interview with our talented and most beloved Hikari. I hope you enjoy it.

featured image: Hikari

Gabriela Marie Milton: What inspired you to become a painter, and specifically, what drew you to the art of painting?

Hikari: First, I’m very grateful for such a wonderful opportunity. I am honored to be interviewed by Literary Revelations.

I started drawing before I had the sense of consciousness, so I don’t remember what inspired me to start drawing. I lived in France from my childhood until I was 15 years old, due to my father’s work. My parents sent me to a painting classroom in Paris after school. The painting classroom was a place where both children and adults drew together on the same theme. I was taught various painting techniques such as watercolor, oil painting, and ink painting.

After returning to Japan, I have not attended any painting classes. All the basics of my drawings were cultivated in a painting classroom in Paris.

My parents loved history and art, and during the holidays, they took me and my younger brother to visit many museums and archeological sites.

Although it was boring at times, it was a valuable experience to see the great art and history of Europe with my own eyes. It was something beautiful which is difficult to express in words. I am grateful to my parents for giving me such an opportunity.

However, I will never forget the impact on me when I visited a Japanese Ukiyo-e exhibition held in Paris. I was a junior high school student. While European art was a part of my daily life, the “traditional art of Japan” that I encountered strengthened my admiration for my homeland, Japan.

I wanted to not only see this kind of traditional Japanese art, but also to painted it myself. This became the starting point for my current depiction of Japanese traditions.

Gabriela Marie Milton: Could you describe your painting style and how it reflects your artistic vision?

Hikari: My painting style is based on the theme of “strong, dignified women who stand up against the injustices in our society. Although it depicts women, my painting style is not a “beauty painting (Bijin-Ga).” Of course, “beaty painting (Bijin-Ga)” is a fine genre of art. However, the reason I created the theme of “strong, dignified women who stand up against the injustices in our society” rather than “beauty painting (Bijin-Ga)” is because I would like to live strongly and proudly in this difficult time. No matter how difficult our society is to live in, I can’t run away from it. We must “create our own place” and live better lives.

I believe that if we do our best, we will bulid the foundation of a society where the next generation can live in a more comfortable and just ways. For the boys and girls of the future the paintings I draw have also an underlying message, “Be strong, and Be dignified.”

Although there are many artists who depict women in KIMONOs, the paintings I draw are not of KIMONOs, but of women wearing “NohGaku Costumes” and dancing powerfully on the mysterious NohGaku stage.

“NohGaku” is the oldest theatrical art in Japan. Its origin go back to 14th century.

“Japanese Danse (Nihon Buyo)” is one of the traditional arts performed in KIMONOs. In Japanese dance, dancers perform light dances “for the customers” by moving their wrists flexibly and using fans.

On the other hand, “NohGaku” is a “dance dedicated to the gods(nature).” The dancers hold the fan forcefully, keep their center of gravity below the abdomen, and keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. The main difference from Japanese dance is that a prayer is sang.

I continue to practice NohGaku, and since discovering NohGaku, I have been able to image myself as “a strong, dignified woman who stands up to society.” For this reason, I hope that by drawing paintings centered around NohGaku dance patterns, I am able to encourage myself and other people who are struggling to survive in a difficult society.

The photo below is of me practicing NohGaku.

Gabriela Marie Milton: What themes or subjects do you typically explore in your paintings?

Hikari: I would like to connect with society and explore themes that appeal to society, rather than immersing myself in self-satisfied paintings that are detached from reality.

I believe it is very important to bring together ideas and create works “together” with artists from various fields, such as photography, poetry, and writing.

Through these collaborations, I build connections with many artists, and I am able to convey complex emotions and gain the sympathy of many.

Gabriela Marie Milton: How do you see your work evolving in the future? Are there any new directions or experiments you’d like to explore?

Hikari: I don’t know how my work will evolve in the future. This is because, although I graduated from the Faculty of Education at a national university in Tokyo, I currently work as a certified public accountant. Therefore, a characteristic of my life is that it is not very consistent, and to be honest, I cannot imagine what direction my art will take in the future.

I was living a life centered around my work as a certified public accountant, and when I started posting my paintings and tanka on social media, I’ve never expected it to become an opportunity for me to receive various inspirations from great poets and writers from all over the world.

Literary Revelations Publishing House taught me that life is truly a place where wonderful things can suddenly happen.

I am trying to live every day to the fullest. I do it now and I hope to do it in the future.

Then, there are two things I want to explore.

One thing is art. I have not studied professionally the theory or history of art, so to have a proper background in the field of art, I am thinking to go to a graduate school specialized in art that I can attend while continuing to work. Although there is a possibility of failing the exam, I believe that it is important to “try”.

The second thing I want to explore is Japan. I lived in France for a long time, and my parents are from Tokyo, so actually, I don’t know much about Japan outside of Tokyo.

I like history, so after graduated university, I traveled to various places in Japan by myself and I found out that different regions had different languages, and each region had different customs. These characteristics can only be understood by going there and experiencing them as I had experienced different regions in France.

Gabriela Marie Milton: Do you have any notable influences or artists who have inspired your work?

Hikari: There are many painters who have influenced me, among them are Shouen Uemura (female Japanese-style painter 1875-1949), Jakuchu Ito (1716-1800), and Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939).

Shouen Uemura painted many Japanese-style wolrks of famous women in Japanese history, but I think these are not just “beautiful paintings(bijin-Ga). I think that Uemura is a Japanese painter who beautifully expresses emotions such as jealousy, sorrow and isolation while focusing on the sad backgrounds of famous women in history.

The following painting (below) which in entitled “HanaGatami” had a huge impact on me. The story of this painting depicts the artist after the person she loved left her. She turned into a madwoman…

The paintings below “HanaGatami” by Shouen Uemura and “Hydrangease and Pair of Chickens” by Jakuchu Ito.

In addition to the influence of painters, I am greatly influenced by people in fields other than painting.

Mr. Naoki Kimura, a fine photographic artist, teaches me the theory of art even though I have never studied art as an academic subject. My master of NohGaku teaches me about the historical position of Japan’s traditional performing arts. He teaches me about the meaning behind each movement of NohGaku, including historical background.

When I was able to understand more about the depth of the books written by many great writers and the poems written by wonderful poets that I met through social media, the influence on me was great.

The book “Wounds I Healed” edited by Gabriela Marie Milton, was an impressive book that made me realize the depth of English poetry for the first time.

I hope that I can continue to receive a lot of lessons from people from different fields, value my core work, and understand the feelings of others. I’m happy to create good works in order to have a positive influence on others while sharing my art and thoughts.

Thank you once again for this wonderful opportunity.

I am deeply grateful to Hikari for dawning for me a splendid picture called White-Eye. Hikari thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Gabriela