Yasue Kodama started with still lifes in the 1980’s and shifted her focus in the 1990’s to powerful abstract paintings. Her Deep Rhyme series is a continuation of this evolution. In these paintings, things and nature ephemerally manifest like a premonition of shadow and depth before recognition.
Yasue Kodama has created a series of winter landscapes of Kyoto, where she lives, and Takarazuka, where she teaches art. After outlining with charcoal, she covers the surfaces of the work evenly with several thin layers of watercolor. Finally, she adds a final layer of pearl powder. The sub-title of this work is white out, an experience where one’s field of vision is enveloped in a snowstorm and one’s sense of direction is lost. These paintings are based off of her experiences in such circumstances. Kodama’s subject is often the woods where she likes to take walks and she says the scenery that catches her eye is a reflection of her soul. In these paintings, she has tried to capture her physical sensation while walking in the woods covered in snow.