INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION «LINE LINES. CHORNOBYL – FUKUSHIMA». Japanese monochrome painting sumi-e by Vladimir MALYSHEV (Belarus)
On March 11, 2018, to the 7th anniversary of the tragedy of the Great East-Japan earthquake and the nuclear accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in the exhibition hall of the museum, on the ground floor, an exhibition of new revenues will open. There are 21 drawings in the style of Japanese monochrome painting sumi-e, which are made on traditional Japanese paper washi with mineral black ink, as well as poems by the author of the cycle “Faults and Faults”. Free entrance.
«LINE LINES. CHORNOBYL – FUKUSHIMA». International exhibition of Japanese monochrome painting sumi-e by vladimir Malyshev (Belarus).
Exhibition of new revenues.
11.03.2018 –
FREE ADMISSION
Curator Anna Korolevska
Poster’s design by Alex Kurmaz
The author Vladimir MALYSHEV (Belarus) says:
“I chose this name, because the fate of the two different nations became strikingly similar to each other after they suddenly faced the same tragedy, a nuclear disaster. A vivid illustration of this was the tragically similar fate of two girls: the Japanese Sadako Sasaki and the Soviet Olya Chemesova. The name “Life Lines” for this exhibition was given to me by one of my favorite books “Parallel Lives” by Plutarch.
The series of drawings “Life lines” marks the parallel between two tragedies that occurred with the interval of 25 years. It tries not so much to illustrate tragic events, but wants to emphasize the idea that trouble brings together different people and different peoples, but it is better if such contingence happens not in times of grief, but in ordinary, everyday life.”
The exhibition presents 21 drawings in the style of Japanese monochrome painting sumi-e made on the traditional Japanese paper washi with mineral black ink.
10 of them represent the series “Chornobyl – Fukushima”, 9 – three triptyches: “A minute before the disaster”, “Dreams of Sadako Sasaki” and “Requiem for Pripyat. To the Memory of Olya Chemezova “, 2 – series “Memory of the heart. Dedication to Atomic Samurai »
The series was created to the 30th anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy and the 5th anniversary of the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima-1. It took part in memorable events dedicated to these dates in Minsk, aroused interest in Japanese journalists and was highlighted in Japanese Media.
In 2018 the series was donated by the author, who lives in Belarus, to the National Museum “Chornobyl”.
Sumi-e is an ink wash monochrome painting on rice paper. It takes its origin from China in the VI century and only in the XIV century it was brought to Japan by Buddhist monks.
The name of the sumi-e style is created from the combination of two Japanese words: “sumi” (ink) and “e” (painting).
Calligraphy and visual art are combined in this art technique, where the contemplative and philosophical component of Zen Buddhism is clearly discernible. This is painting, self-expression and philosophy at the same time.
The sumi-e artists do not make pencil sketches; the image is born spontaneously, when the hand of the master is guided by his/her feelings, sensations and spirit. The aim of the artist is not photographic reproduction of reality, these paintings are primarily images filled with philosophical meaning. The image should spontaneously flow from the artist’s consciousness onto a white sheet of paper. Sumi-e conveys the essence of things, but not the slightest details of their outer shell.
Sumi-e is a monochromic genre. Traditionally, this technique uses black and gray colors with varying degrees of saturation. The brushes for sumi-e resemble those for the watercolor painting, with the only difference that the tip of the brush for ink wash painting is more thin and pointed. An integral part of the Sumi-e artist`s toolkit is suzuri, an inkstone with a small pit in one of the sides. This deepening is filled with water. An artist puts a few drops of water on an inkstone and grinds the inkstick in a circular motion until a smooth, black ink of the desired concentration is made. Such ink is made of charcoal powder or soot with some sticky substance or camphor.
The author of the poems presented at the exhibition is Volodymyr MALYSHEV.
Japanese translation was made by the author’s wife Miho KHANDA.
About the author:
Volodymyr MALYSHEV is a liquidator of the Chornobyl accident in November 1986 – February 1987, a former military, captain in reserve, cinema director and scriptwriter, works in the field of information and multimedia technologies, writes poems and prose. He is a laureate of international festivals and a UN UNICEF prize winner.
