An inspirational art exhibit is now on display at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. Beautiful paintings remind us that rebirth can come unexpectedly after a period of destruction.
Boatloads of Mizuaoi are works by artist Shintaro Araki, who is a member of the Mizuaoi Project.
As the Japanese Friendship Garden’s website explains:
The Mizuaoi Project, initiated by a group of artists receiving a seed found in Fukushima from an artist, Shigenobu Yoshida, celebrates the “rebirth” of the nearly extinct Mizuaoi plant…a genus of flowering plants…considered a weed species in Japan…exterminated so as not to corrupt rice cultivation.
Thought to have been eradicated throughout most the country, the Mizuaoi lay dormant until the Great East Japan Earthquake, on March 11, 2011, and tsunami, brought the Mizuaoi seed back to life and sparked a poetic Movement, spreading the Mizuaoi image as a symbol of hope, and regeneration throughout Japanese society.
Members of the Mizuaoi Project cultivate the plants in pots, metaphorically referred to as “Boats” and distribute their boats nationwide…
These individual works by Shintaro Araki do indeed resemble boats filled with robust green life. Their simplicity and beauty float before our eyes, flower in the mind. The art expresses hope. It reminds us of nature’s inherent power to renew living things.
The exhibition can be viewed in the garden’s Exhibit Hall through April 28, 2024.
Here are just a few of the beautiful pieces on display…
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