Christine Shoji - Furusatou

CHRISTINE SHOJI

CHRISTINE SHOJI

FURUSATOU

Going home, that lovely warm feeling of nostalgia, or ‘old sugar’ as the Japanese say; Furusatou is a word play on Furu sato, meaning old town.

In late 2021, I returned to my home town in East Devon, to help nurse my 97-year-old father. With a travel exemption (it was the height of the Coronavirus pandemic) and after much soul searching, I decided to go for over 3 months. It wasn’t easy. He challenged me, pressed all my buttons. Art was my salvation. Dad died in June 2022 aged 98 years, so this is a homage to his long life, in the small fishing town where he was born and bred, and the places that I revisited after so many years in Australia.

The work is warm, lively and expressive. I played with mixed media: ink washes, soft pastels, water colours.

* East Devon – Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – is located in the scenic county of Devon in south west of England. First designated an AONB back in 1963, the area covers 268 square kilometres, covering 33% of the East Devon District, making East Devon one of more compact AONBs in the UK. The area provides one of the finest examples of unspoilt scenic coastline and countryside in England and is famous for its picture postcard images of Devon.

In the Pink series

This series of work draws on the aftermath of the terrible bushfires in the Blue Mountains in late 2019. To the astonishment of many, pink flannel flower plants blanketed parts of the Narrowneck Plateau in Katoomba; a rare phenomenon where this plant only appears and flowers the summer after a bushfire! I wanted to express my joy at this event. It was the beginning of my landscape works again, after a long hiatus of many years.

Christine Shoji

February

2023

Circle

Life mixed media on paper

60cm x 60cm

$3400

Otter Valley II

mixed media on paper

28cm x 75cm

$1900

Bystock Pools (study) mixed media on paper

56cm x 75cm $3400

Woodbury Common mixed media on paper

56cm x 155cm

$6500

Otter Head mixed media on paper

40cm x 75cm

$2300

Sprats: He Loved this Plaice mixed media on paper

40cm x 75cm

$2300

Lympstone mixed media on paper

40cm x 75cm

$2300

$1900

In the Pink mixed media on paper

57cm x 75cm

$3200