Description

Nana Shiomi Shape of God prints are all about water. Nana has taken an idea from Hokusai for her images, isolating just the ‘shape of water’ out of his historic prints.These prints are on display at the gallery in Japan Water.

In 1833-4 Japanese artist Hokusai (Katsushika Hokusai, 1760-1849) made a series of 8 prints for ‘A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces’ . These were all sited on Honshu island and represent Japan’s most beautiful waterfalls. Hokusai was a follower of a kind of Buddhism which incorporated Shinto beliefs in animism. This means that he believed that gods inhabit nature, in the trees, plants, and these waterfalls.

In making her own distinctive images of the water itself, Nana shows each one more clearly as a god of water.

Hokusai originals are illustrated below showing the waterfalls in context. From top left to right is Ono, then Amida, then Kirifuri and below is Kannon

About the artist

Nana Shiomi is a printmaker, born and raised in Japan, now based in southeast London. During her artistic training, completed at the Royal College of Art in London, her identity changed. She began by looking only at Western contemporary art, but her fellow students regarded her as Eastern, something exotic. Gradually she discovered her Japanese side and increasingly it has shaped her, but distinctively, through her art. For her, print-making has shaped her identity.out the artist