I meet Sarah Waite in June, just days before she returns to the U.K. after five years in Japan. We talk about the exhibition she will have in London in October as part of the Japan Festival 2001, agreeing to run the interview then. So now, here we are in autumn, and the time is ripe.
Sarah recently completed a three-year scholarship funded by the government to study “nihonga,” which loosely translates as traditional Japanese painting. But it’s not quite so simple, she says, apologizing for the state of their tiny apartment, which is halfway to being packed. (Husband John McNulty is out with baby Michael to give us some breathing space.)
“Many people think nihonga as a term and an art form is very old,” she begins. “In fact it was ‘manufactured’ during Edo period to maintain traditional painting.” Even more surprisingly perhaps, this development is attributed to a Japanese-American collaboration between two academics, Okakura Tenshin and Ernest Fellenonsa.
As with much oil painting in Japan, nihonga is conservative. In Western painting, oil or acrylic paint is applied to canvas. Nihonga requires “washi” — handmade paper — and natural pigments mixed with animal glue.
Today many of these pigments are extremely expensive. “There are two modern alternatives, especially for struggling students and young artists: synthetic colors made from a dyed vitreous glasslike substance, and organic dyed clays, which come in cake form and are similar to gouache.” She uses them all, but mostly the synthetic types. There is also the application of pure gold leaf, which in many eyes is the signature of nihonga style.
Creativity, it seems, is in the blood. Granny was an arts and crafts fanatic. Sarah’s brother is an industrial designer. “I went to Bradford School of Art, then Central School (now merged with St. Martins) in central London for a BA in fine art painting, and to Chelsea for an MA.”
She set up a studio with friends. “You can survive as a struggling independent artist in England; here young artists are mostly forced through financial constraints and lack of affordable studio spaces to live and paint at home.”
After five years of part-time jobs, she came to Japan with John, whom she has known since she was 18, for a year. “We’d always wanted to come to Asia, and a friend living and working here, from the same village in Yorkshire where I grew up, said we’d have a good time in Japan.”
This was Sarah’s first experience of working with good washi. “The stuff we practiced on at college back home for printmaking was poor, but still interesting enough to make me want to know more.”
When she returned to the U.K. in 1994, it was with “tons of ideas for painting.” A lot of them, she acknowledges, were obvious Japanese-influenced images, but no less worthwhile for that.
As soon as she got back she applied to the Japanese government for a scholarship, citing her deep interest in washi for its absorbent qualities.
She knew little to nothing about nihonga when she first arrived at Tama Art University in 1996. The professors were bemused by her work; she hardly fitted into any slot, traditional or otherwise.
“In London I’d moved from painting large abstract canvases in oils to working on smaller unprimed canvas with acrylics. Living along the River Thames, I was picking up imagery from the docks — spaces, shapes, memories. I can’t say that my work has changed much thematically, but it looks very different now.”
For many contemporary nihonga artists, busy as they are building up their work in layers, traditional materials can be almost irrelevant.
“Go to any degree show here and it’s often hard to differentiate between regular painting and so-called nihonga painting in terms of the impasto techniques and subject matter. It’s only when you look closely at the glistening surface that they are distinguishable.” With Sarah’s work there is a difference in style and delicacy that transcends Japanese practices.
“Painters here tend to form societies that are closed to other Japanese artists, let alone a foreigner,” she notes. “I don’t feel resentful, I just think it’s rather sad. We have so much to share and learn from one another.”
One of her professors is urging fledgling artists to form their own groups, but as he says, there is a terrible apathy among young people. “It’s not wholly their fault. The atmosphere is not always supportive here.”
She has exhibited in the U.K. or Japan (or both) every year since 1984. “I never sold much back home, mostly because my early canvases were so large.” Here, through the auspices of Kathryn Bell’s Fine Art Consultancy, Sarah has consistently sold well.
“Back in 1996, people often asked me why go to Japan when the art scene back home was so vibrant. But I wanted the chance to develop my work in a way that only Japan could offer at the time. My work may not be newsworthy in tabloid terms, but I know I have a place there. I’m working towards combining what I’ve learned in Japan with Western-style media.
“It has been such a valuable time for me here. I hope to maintain my contact with Japan, returning to exhibit, evolving in a new way.”
Sarah suggested we nip up to the roof of the apartment block to take pictures. One of her favorite places, with a typical view over Tokyo, it is easy to see blocks and intersected geometric forms as basic to composition. “I’m especially interested in how light transforms such images. How an entranceway becomes a beautiful yellow lozenge at night, how the rigid horizontal lines of a blind are dissolved by sunlight.”
It is thrilling to report that her work has never looked the same since.
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