I'm not sure I'm always a fan of abstract art, but I've been reading lately about Makoto Fujimura. He is a Christian abstract artist. Philadelphia Biblical University, where my brother and his wife graduated, was the first Christian institution to commission one of his paintings.
I liked this painting for its shades of blue and green. Blue can be soothing and can have a celestial ethereal effect.
According to what I read in "Saving Leonardo" by Nancy Pearcey, Fujimura uses an ancient Japanese technique called nihonga, and uses ground up precious stones such as gold leaf, lapis and malachite as pigments. Fujimura said, "Shall we be suspicious of fireworks spreading their abstraction over a summer sky? Or wave patterns created on the sand? What about classical music or jazz? Life is full of abstraction."
He is working on an illuminated version of the four gospels which I think is really neat. For more information, check out this link. http://www.crossway.org/blog/2010/11/makoto-fujimuras-illuminated-gospel-book-project%E2%80%94the-four-holy-gospels/
This is really cool! I like that blue and green painting too. Do you happen to know the name of it?
ReplyDelete: ) The title is "Water Flames - Azurite."
ReplyDeleteI think it would make a nice design on a textile such as a man's tie or a woman's silk scarf. : )
ReplyDeleteFYI - Fujimura's painting style, Nihonga, doesn't exactly use precious metals in place of paint, but in place of the pigment in paint.
ReplyDeleteI have an artist friend who knows Fujimura through his consortium of Christian artists. He seems to be a very neat man!
By the way, I've always liked the painting, "The Accolade!" Nice to see it here! :-)
Thanks Bob for the information. My small bit of information on him all came from one source, and perhaps the author didn't express the idea of nihonga (or even understand it) clearly. Yes, I like "The Accolade" also and have been having fun prettifying my page.
ReplyDeleteTo Bob again, it's neat that you have some indirect connection with Fujimura and have reason to have a good opinion of him. : )
ReplyDeleteI have a "textures" collection of photos or digital art that I use to print for "origami paper". Some of these abstract designs work well for that.
ReplyDelete