Retire At 80

Since I did this old piece of scenery painting already a few years ago, I always looked back at it with great fondness. This was the first “serious” piece of artwork I created using Procreate and iPad Pro that convinced me to do my creative painting away from my computer and Photoshop. Some parts of that image were even done at a cafe too!

Recently, I decided to try to replicate that free and a bit fantastic-looking style of painting in a project that we are conceiving together with Kana. I based this picture on some photos that I took myself, trying to mix them enough to create an entirely new place.

Masahisa Fukase, Yoko, 1974

Fukase almost exclusively photographed his wife, Yoko, for 13 years until their breakup, afterwards obsessively photographing ravens,as symbols of his grief.

Fukase died in 2012,  having been in a coma for 20 years following a near-fatal fall down the stairs of his favorite bar in 1992. Yoko visited him twice a month throughout his long limbo – though, heartbreakingly, he would have been unaware of her presence.