The Lake Series.

I created the Lake Series to experiment with color through well-defined landscape forms. No… that’s not entirely true. A friend of mine who lives in Poland asked me to paint a landscape with a lake. While I was doing research for the painting and then actually painting, I felt very homesick. I realized I miss my ‘Vaterland’. These landscapes are a simplified reconstruction of a beautiful place full of lakes in north-east Poland, called Augustow. After finishing the painting I started to paint smaller versions of a similar Polish landscape.

In the process I experimented with different mediums - acrylic paints, colored pencils, markers, and some less-obvious artistic tools such as nail polish colors and lipsticks.

So yes, I created this series to experiment and have fun with color through simplified landscape forms. But the main “why” behind these13 paintings is that I wanted to feel re-connected with the beauty of the Polish landscape because I miss it while living in Japan.

Created: 2022-2023