Japanese artist Yuriko lochan has imbibed the significance of India’s national flower in her paintings
Historically, the lotus has been a predominant motif in Eastern art and culture. The significance of the lotus is multifarious, it has been used to symbolise power and spirituality, and continues to form an important part in Indian art.
Yuriko lochan is an artist of Japanese origin but has been living in India for almost three decades now. Over the years, she has assimilated our art traditions in her rich body of work and uses the lotus motif as a recurrent theme in her current exhibition titled lotus Odyssey at the Artistique Gallery, The Oberoi, Gurgaon.
What will take one’s breath away is the detailing, depth, rhythm, space and division in her works. The lines are delicate and flawless. The paintings are a brilliant combination of form and aestheticism, rendering a tactile element to them. The lotuses, on closer look, appear strikingly real; one can instinctively “feel” the velvety, soft petals. In soothing colours of blues, purples, reds, greens and oranges, the images transfix a viewer to subconsciously connect with the paintings. The paintings are primarily Gouache and watercolour on Japanese Shikishi paperboard.
Her paintings are an amalgamation of her Japanese roots and the Indian landscape she had experienced and analysed over the years.
“The lotus here imbibes the ancient connotations of purity and, most significantly, shakti. It symbolises the soul not touched by the dirt and rising above the impurity of the world. In the Japanese context, the lotus stands for different stages of life. I have always been fascinated with the flower’s nature as something that draws its beauty from the grossness of the mud and yet stands tall, oozing divinity. The human soul is just like that — uncontaminated with worldly affairs. Each of my works represents different frames of mind, even though the lotus is the recurrent theme. When one sees a piece of art, they actually see another aspect to an artist. Within the limitations of media and materials, artists try to express spirituality in their works. The purpose of a painting is to touch a viewer in an inexplicable way. I observe how the human psyche is related to nature and how it manifests itself in different places. The Divination series is a meditation on the human anticipation of destiny while the Fluid series is a mirror to the fluctuating mind as well as aspects of life that are in constant change. Hana-the flower reflects the innocent soul as a blossoming flower,” the artist pointed out.