Mr Hayashi's Elephant: Creativity and Friendship
Creativity, at its core, is about sharing one's vision with the world. When a maker creates, they share their emotions, whether it's joy...
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Jan 42 min read
‘Find Joy in It' : Kawai Kanjiro's House
When you are travelling you can never fully appreciate which are the moments that will leave the deepest impression on you. You have to...
Jan 2, 20234 min read
Failure and Creativity: Some Things I Got Wrong
Around the end of the year, many people like to look back and measure their stages of development with their achievements. I do this too,...
Dec 31, 20223 min read
36 Views of the BT Tower: Fireworks on the Thames and Sumida Rivers
As we approach the New Year, I felt it was appropriate to discuss my design of new year fireworks on the Thames and Hiroshige's...
Nov 17, 20224 min read
The Foreigners Making 'Japanese' Art
As an artist working with strong Japanese influences, I sometimes get asked about my justification for this cultural 'appropriation'....
Oct 2, 20223 min read
Foujita's Feline Friends
Foujita is most famous for his paintings of nudes and cats. Indeed, it's his paintings of cats that drew me to him the most. My other...
Aug 24, 20224 min read
In Search of Foujita: An Artist's Pilgrimage (Part 4)
On a sunny Saturday, Vicky (my fellow pilgrim) and I made the journey to the Holy Grail of the Foujita trail: Foujita's house and studio...
Aug 24, 20224 min read
In Search of Foujita: An Artist's Pilgrimage (Part 2)
On Thursday 18th August, I arrived at my second stop of the Foujita trail: the Musee D'Art Moderne De Paris, which is interestingly...
Aug 24, 20225 min read
In Search of Foujita: An Artist's Pilgrimage (Part 1)
People go to Paris to see the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral etc...but I went this time with a very different purpose in...
Jun 27, 20223 min read
Noh Performance and Ogata Korin's Painting
I recently had the opportunity to see Noh being performed in London. Noh is one of the oldest continous forms of theatre in the world...
Apr 25, 20223 min read
The Mystery of Foujita's White
Foujita (1886-1968) is an artist I have come to appreciate more and more over time; not just his depiction of cats and nudes, but also...
Mar 15, 20224 min read
Playing with Ink: 'Pomo' and 'Tarashikomi' Techniques
In my studies of the Rinpa school in Japan and their techniques for my own paintings, I suddenly realised something that I didn't think...
Mar 8, 20222 min read
Of Gods and Cats
I recently painted two cats on gold leaf with mineral pigment. In composition I wanted them to mirror each other like the Gods of Wind...
Jan 19, 20228 min read
Learning from Hokusai
The influence of Hokusai on subsequent artists is truly huge; ranging from Degas, Van Gogh, Klimt, Picasso (he loved the octopus and...
Jan 14, 20223 min read
Painting Cats: Foujita, Goyo, and Me
There are two main artistic influences on my cat paintings: Hashiguchi Goyo (1880-1921) and Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968). In this post,...
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