HEAR NO EVIL Acrylic 42cm x 33cm
Text from the book
"Behind the Kimono"
"Behind the Kimono"
The idea for this painting came from a photograph Andy took of a Japanese girl wearing a beautiful kimono and holding a camera in the Kyoto Kiyomizu Temple on a Spring Day. With his mind firmly on the idea of the triptych and the theme of “hearing”, this image prompted him to think about which modern artefacts would be blend with a traditional theme.
There then followed a series of photo montages with various geisha hair decorations. It was only after trying large headphones that they fitted the exact profile of the geisha wig. The inclusion of the crane, seen flying away from her hand, was intended to convey a calming old song listened by the Geisha on this most modern device. The woman’s total consumption and preoccupation with her own thoughts suggests isolation but she could equally be in a room of crowded people unseen, the imagined space beyond the picture plane being a recurrent theme in Andy’s paintings.
Andy found this meditative isolation most intriguing and especially prevalent in Japan when watching people undertaking their daily commute “lost in their own techno worlds, drifting through the dense crowds in a trance, pulling their focus inwards to an ideal state of peace”. With her eyes closed and her mind seemingly elsewhere, this woman certainly encapsulates this isolation
Set against a plain background to suggest a sense of peace, the geisha’s kimono is worked with a carved surface in order to achieve a sense of the densely embroidered surface.
There then followed a series of photo montages with various geisha hair decorations. It was only after trying large headphones that they fitted the exact profile of the geisha wig. The inclusion of the crane, seen flying away from her hand, was intended to convey a calming old song listened by the Geisha on this most modern device. The woman’s total consumption and preoccupation with her own thoughts suggests isolation but she could equally be in a room of crowded people unseen, the imagined space beyond the picture plane being a recurrent theme in Andy’s paintings.
Andy found this meditative isolation most intriguing and especially prevalent in Japan when watching people undertaking their daily commute “lost in their own techno worlds, drifting through the dense crowds in a trance, pulling their focus inwards to an ideal state of peace”. With her eyes closed and her mind seemingly elsewhere, this woman certainly encapsulates this isolation
Set against a plain background to suggest a sense of peace, the geisha’s kimono is worked with a carved surface in order to achieve a sense of the densely embroidered surface.
OTHER FILMS IN SERIES