RIE La

Everything is gradual, everything is slow just as nature intended. Rie's round and peculiar works each transport us to a new place and, expressing different sensations, transport us with our minds to those contaminated and nature-rich landscapes we yearn for so much. If art has become nature in the artist's works and if nature has become art, "Breath of Spring Air" is the most tangible example of the cyclic and inexhaustible life force. The work is a tribute to the arrival of spring, the time of year when everything awakens from its quiet winter slumber. The branches host green buds, the flowers begin to bloom, the grass is once again painted emerald green, and the sky abandons its grayish tones to embrace azure hues once again. These images associated with the springtime are all here in this work, distilled and decoded through the color that bathes the surface of the medium. Concentric circles tease our vision. A pea-green band introduces us to a cerulean space that softly turns to pinkish hues going toward the center of the work. These are the colors of spring, of the breath of life that awakens nature. In fact, the one represented by Rie is not just any spring. It has a definite place evidenced by the presence of fine sand that, when applied to the wooden support, creates a distinctly grainy texture. It is the fine, golden sand of Okinawa, her beloved land and always paid homage through her works. Rie's art becomes water, sand, salt and sea breeze, and we, looking at her works, can feel the smell of salt tickling our nostrils.