This volume contains works mainly from my private Exhibitions and the SHUTAI Exhibitions in Tokyo from 1984 to 1998.
After moving to a village called Omonma,a rural district located outside of Toride City in Ibaraki Prefecture,I realized that I had found my main theme I had been looking for.In the widely spread Kanto plateau,I saw streams,woods,vegetable patches, footpaths between rice fields,the high and open sky,and that performance of nature around me.I could not avoid a feeling of excitement-I must have this impression on my canvas.
Here I found a new life rising up from dead vegetables at a field corner and from withered weeds which will return to the soil someday.When I sat down on the ground and looked at them to sketch,I experienced a magical excitement.Sometimes I felt I heard a scream from a tree,pulled up by the root,and from a dry clod from the ground at a development site.I would rather admire the beauty of red Camellia flowers their petals falling to the ground and about to die,than beautifully arranged thousands of roses.
I realized the significance of life and death though nature.I think my work was materialized by tracing them scrupulously.Occasionally I imagine putting myself inside of them by drawing and painting,and becoming one of them.Actually the more I draw,the more I am inspired by that.
As log as I can hear the voice from the life of nature,I will keep filling my canvas.
Reiko Fukuda