Gion Night

Gion Night

“Gion Night” completed late April 2024 with Neocolor II and coloured pencils, 23.5 x 23.5 cm.

Electric lights, illuminated signage and red Japanese lanterns glowing from a Gion Higashi side-street, together create a nocturnal abstract.

“Gion Night” (above) is my third consecutive drawing of soft-focus Kyoto. “Gion Night” is the most abstract of the three, but if you know the idea began with a side-street or alley-way, you can kind of see it.

The previous two drawings are “Alone in Kyoto” and “Downtown“.

“Alone in Kyoto” Neocolor II and coloured pencils. 23.5 x 28.5 cm. April 2024.

“Alone in Kyoto” (above) was drawn after “Downtown” (below). Each drawing is more pared back than the previous one, with incrementally decreasing detail.

“Downtown” Neocolor II and coloured pencils. 30 x 21 cm, drawn in March 2024.

These three drawings have been questioning, challenging, frustrating and fulfilling in turn for me as I have sought out an impressionistic essence of evening Kyoto.

Alone in Kyoto

Alone in Kyoto

“Alone in Kyoto” Neocolor II and Luminance on Arches Aquarelle smooth. 23.5 x 28.5 cm. April 2024.

Last time I traveled to Kyoto I was not in a good mood during my first evening there. No doubt I was worn out from lack of sleep and two long-haul flights. I felt that I had made a mistake in coming back. I trudged around for a while in a black mood then gave up on finding inspiration and returned to my hotel room.

Looking back at my (very few) photo images from that first evening, I wondered if I could communicate my sense of doubt in a drawing. In my journal I had written “worst first night ever“, and that I was fluctuating between despair and resignation.

Well, there can be a kind of dark beauty in introspection – perhaps.