Gion Night
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” (above) was drawn after “Downtown” (below). Each drawing is more pared back than the previous one, with incrementally decreasing detail.
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.
Julie Podstolski - Abstract Realism 
This is so luscious, a worthy addition to the set! I think something that makes an abstract work accessible is being able to find hints of something familiar, even if it is not spelt out, and this occurs here. As you said, there is a sense of a laneway or alley, you can feel your eye moving through it, taking you inside the warmth of the colours to a place that is for our imagination to conjure. Bravo, I love it!
Thank you Anna! I believed in the concept of this piece even though I had no idea if I could make it work. It took days of adjusting and adjusting until it came together. I didn’t mind the effort as I knew this was an experimental kind of work for me so I was open to whatever the outcome was. That it succeeded made me very happy.
Accepting a work is experimental from the beginning gives great freedom! It worked!
Another balanced symphony of shape and texture. Very abstract but with a real depth of mood and sensitivity.
Thanks so much, Robyn! Diving deeper into the zone of comfort (as we discussed) doesn’t mean no room for experimentation.
Dear Julie,
Thank you for your pictures. I would like to be in Japan very much and I
believe to be there soon.
Tomasz
Greetings Tomek, I certainly hope that you do go to Japan. I am sure you will love being there. It is truly another world – and a unique one too.