Nature's Compositions and Living in Artificial Rooms

Dear Friends of Natsumi Goldfish,

New York City just had a snowy day again, and the roads are white again, and all plants and foods for wild city birds are hidden under the white carpet. Still birds look happy chasing each other on the white cloud still soft, as if they know that the spring is coming soon.

I just finished a fish tank painting which I started last year, and now only wait for it to dry before the final coat. I started this piece last year, if not two years ago. (I believe it was early last year).

Last year, I had a few group exhibitions and with their dedicated themes, so I had to leave it aside with a few other paintings on my wall. It was also not perfect timing to finish them, but now I am very happy that I am finally working on them to finish.

I have not yet talked to many of you about my fish tank paintings and why the fish tank became one of the subjects in my work. I will have a page dedicated to each project/series insight but meanwhile I will write about it little here.

A fish tank is to me similar to window. For me it is a smaller version of my window series. It is a frame with life in it, a frame that is artificially made yet also we cannot control everything that happens inside. Fish tank is made for aquatic life creatures and water plants by people for people to see, for us to be able to live in the same space. 

Fishes are given everything that is needed to live, more or less, yet it has never given full privacy. There is no curtain unlike human windows. With this small window to another space of water, I enjoy playing/trying with compositions, thinking about and searching what is essential, what is natural and what is artificial, and so on. While it started for me to be able to try small ideas that are still too under development to try on big window frames, fish tank series started to give me different challenges and discoveries for what I am searching through my life.

detail: a marble

This series will be slow growing, but I hope you enjoy each of my fish tank paintings, take time with each of them, and find something unique about it.

There is another fish tank painting in progress which will be done soon. This one I started earlier, maybe two years ago, and has been staying on my wall quietly. I was thinking about it for a long time, about something that was still missing for this piece, but I finally found it in my mind.

Detail: Goldfish tail

It is nice to see several undone work on my studio wall, it is like books I have been collecting to read. But it's different.

Detail: a nerite snail

My art is something only I can make. I am happy to see pieces that I struggled to progress are finally showing its final form.  I will not post finished images of these paintings on my Instagram, but you can see them on my website when I update.