Text for "Late Autumn Weeds" Exhibition in Switzerland

I draw landscapes of residential neighbourhoods in Japan.

I love the environment surrounding me and I praise the good atmosphere of people’s life.

Neighbourhood landscapes sometimes show me beauty beyond my expectation. I draw fields, gardens and kitchen gardens in which I see their owner’s joy, sometimes I just draw wild grasses growing in the city, weeds that I see in parking lots; they can be breathtakingly beautiful. I also draw houses in which their owners seems to have lived happily for a long time.

Late Autumn Weeds

2018 Pencil and watercolor on paper mounted on panel 179 × 466 cm

The large picture in this exhibition is inspired by a landscape located by the riverside near my house.The ground is this area is covered by concrete blocks but grass grows between them, the weeds have wide spaces and they show their forms clearly. When I discovered this landscape, it was late autumn, there was still a lot of sunshine and the colours changed a lot and the weeds looked marvellous. This work was drawn in one-point-perspective, the plants in the picture are life size because I wanted this landscape to be spread before the viewer’s eyes. I chose the single weeds from the same location. I also drew them life-size. They were beautiful like Buddha statues.

I visited that place many times, made sketches, took many photos and brought back lots of plants to my studio where I dried them and later drew them.

With this exhibition, I show my thankfulness to nature living and thriving between concrete blocks.

Yukiko Suto

July 16th, 2019