Yusuke Kitagawa 28/01
There are moments in life that you look back upon, and realize that it changed you as a person.
Little moments that you try to depict countlessly on canvas, that are never truly about just one moment.
Your friendship with Ryuji can be depicted as two friends eating Ramen together, the company even better than the food. And that is not a sediment you can express lightly, for that ramen was divine. Yellows and oranges, bright and happy.
Madarame is not so easily depicted. He is mentor, he is father figure, he is disappointment and betrayal entangled with love and grief. He is a series of paintings in abstraction, darkness entwined with light. A texture that can not stay flat on the canvas.
He is not an easy man to define, full of contradictions. And yet you love him still.
Your line work improves in your depiction of a woman you asked to model for you, who proceeded to inform you very loud and full of gestures, how exactly you hire models when you misstepped. She is bossy and fascinating, her hands going everywhere as your hands move to try to capture that flurry of expression. You apologize to Ann afterwards for improper model hiring practice.
Your friendship with her is a diffrent thing, then your friendship with Ryuji. It's clothes, and group outings, and fashion. It's crêps and people watching at the mall, and the thrill of a roller coaster with Ann and Ryuji screaming around you. Pinks and reds.
Where Ann's eye improves your eye for people, Futaba's challenges you in conceptual. She's always sending you something new, alongside several pictures and fanart from her favorite Media's. Her favorite is featherman. You take to using them as references for warmup sketches, shapes and silhouettes taking form under your pen. And she's quite happy to receive some of the better ones for presents.
Joker likes to take you places. He takes you all around Tokyo to give you new places for inspiration. He takes you out to nature, and points out all the little things, the values in the colours under the changes of the natural sun. The tones of greens and purples in a flower half in shade, Morgana a pure black that is different from any other shadows.
Haru likes to take you places too, differently from Joker. She takes you and Makoto to places they missed out in their childhoods. The space around is transformed with their laughter, and it feels like they are taken back years, and bring you with them. They go out for dinner after, still laughing, and you go with them
Makoto is a contrast, in that she banged on your door one day, and determined she would get your budget into some kind of order. She's in fine form, as she demands to see receipts and get some kind of organizing system in place. It doesn't all get done in one day, but slowly, Your bills begin to make some sort of sense.
The series you have done about your friends would not look connected at first glance. But they have come Into your life transforming it from a mix of blues, blacks and whites, and given it colours, values, and form. Lines have taken shape, and space has been given weight.
It's a very personal piece, but You have never painted for the money.