Sinking down with my entire body into a painting,
I find myself in a perfect sanctuary, untainted by anyone.
This thought comes naturally when painting.
The heart quickly falls silent and turns into a meditative, almost spiritual state.
Then shapeless spirits like the flickering of a shooting star, divisions of cells,
transient lights will appear, as if they replying to landscapes, feelings, bodies
and lives, that have been lost.
Using canvases with many different textures, the seeping of the oil paint and the fine drawings of the crayons come together and bring a painting down to the canvas.
Then the raw materials and the technique, brain and feelings, everything form a union and complement each other.
My home. The spectacle of the mist above the sea of Kesennuma,
brightly shining in the sunset (kearashi).
Views discovered at my parents’ house, unchanged throughout the times.
Ancient relics in Greece, in the middle of lush,
wild grassland and defying the ages.
The nostalgic landscapes of rural Korea in the foreground and historic mountains in the background. Frosty air in Germany with pale layers of snow under cloudy skies.
Holy mountains in Italy and the translucence of crystalline, clear lakes.
Many different fragments of the world have touched my skin and my senses,
and they all make their appearance on the canvas.
That’s why I feel that a perfect sanctuary for my heart comes into being through painting.
Aya Onodera