Andrea Dezsö: Of Dead Things 2008
This is a postcard project worked on in Kamiyama. It started with a pack of old fashioned deckled edge, postcard-sized papers I bought at the Tokushima art supply store with mailing lines and boxes printed in red on the verso and a few tubes of watercolors I brought from home. They are made in small batches from natural minerals, earth and semi-precious stones. I haven’t been using watercolors because I found them intimidating. My life in Kamiyama felt remote enough from my regular life to give even these somewhat esoteric watercolors a try. As I was scanning the paintings I realized that they are all, without exception of dead things.

NOTE: I saw a book of the mural art of Kotohira-gu Shrine and was completely enthralled by the work of Ito Jakuchu, who painted the sliding door panels of the Chief Priest’s Living Quarters. The paintings are of various flowers and plants in front of a solid gold background, arranged in a sort of catalog, in neat columns and rows instead of the more frequent landscape style arrangement. What struck me was the unedited, thruthful way Jakuchu painted these flowers. Some of them are in bloom while others are fading, shriveling, some leaves are green and fresh others have big holes, eaten away by insects, plant rot or disease. This is not nature in a sanitized artificial way, it’s not a “best of” but a deeply compassionate look at things as they are, glorious beauty amid disease and decay all entangled, all framed in gold.

© Andrea Dezsö