Feel the need to be wowed by wide open spaces and awe inspiring landscapes? Even if you can't travel out West this summer, artist Yuko K. has brought back a little piece of magic from Monument Valley for your visual enjoyment. "Air and Rocks" , a photography exhibit by Yuko K., will be view in the Children's Room of Mulberry Street Library through September 9th, 2017. Yuko K. has exhibited at the Mulberry Street Library previously in 2014 and 2016  We spoke about her recent trip. 

- What inspired you to take a trip out West to see these vast landscapes?

I think moving our physical body to different places often brings the chance to receive important inspirations through our experiences, where we feel like breathing fresh air.  Staying away from my work space, and being myself in such grand nature, is one of the most certain ways to restore myself. I was also very curious, on my way traveling West, to feel the moment that such huge nature and vast landscapes would be revealed to me, seeing such with my own eyes. I could easily imagine that being surrounded by such vast nature would dissolve the tiredness accumulating within subconsciously in city life, and would wake up in me different levels of my spiritual existence.

- What did you learn from this experience about the United States?

I had traveled to some cities on the West coast even before this trip and knew the difference, between being there and in New York City, as levels of bodily sensations. On the West coast it seemed more natural, people co-exist with nature because of the extensive spaces and natural landscapes among the different areas of large ocean, beach, desert and fields, with a warm and dry Mediterranean like climate. I felt many cities of the West coast might have subtle, ground levels of energy influences or connection to the adjacent vast natural landscapes such as the  national park areas in Arizona and Utah, in some invisible way. So I imagined that the land area circle of Arizona and Utah must be one of the most powerful natural fields that the continental U.S. holds. I appreciated this property of mother earth in the U.S., and thought we should not forget that we are made to live on this planet earth.

- How will this experience of traveling to the American West inform your future artworks? 

I started to have more respect for the time we can spend not thinking anything and just letting ourselves be fully in nature, going with the flow during our traveling.  Whenever I see photographs I took while I was in nature, I can still experience that feeling of being surrounded by the energy fields of Arizona and Utah, and my empty mind is easily drawn back there. Being with my natural self is one of the most important lessons I learned from this trip, to create art with high levels of inspiration.

- What was your favorite place on this trip? 

Every location and area I traveled to were too wonderful and I cannot select one easily, but I was very impressed with Monument Valley, and driving in the area around there I can say was my favorite one.

-Did you have similar experience in visiting natural areas in Japan? 

I had always been living in big cities in Japan, and unfortunately never had the opportunity to visit such vast natural areas in my country. I am not sure if it can be considered a similar sort of experience, but I often visited Kyoto (the beautiful old capital of Japan) and I always liked to visit in nature there. Kyoto has many Shinto shrines, and “Shintoism” finds god in nature such as mountains and rivers, animals and other natural phenomena,  which are located not only in the city but also in the natural environment there, becoming a place of worship open for everybody. Actually, Shintoism’s ideas also remind me of the life philosophy held by native American Indians, to preserve to live relating with nature in some way. Geographically, Kyoto city is located in a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, with very wide and shallow rivers running through the city, so we can easily access to nature there. Whenever I visit Shinto shrines in the nature of Kyoto, I feel a sort of transcendental energy being linked with the land area and can feel clarity in these places. We can see how ancient wisdoms must be relating to each other beyond their different locations in the world, when we see that spirits are existing in the pure nature of mother earth everywhere.

Artist's Biography - After graduating from university with a fine art major in Japan, I began working as a freelance illustrator and instructor of painting, along with practicing my fine art painting, and then moved to New York City. I am currently living in NYC and work with various materials in painting, printmaking, illustration, photographs and videos in the methodology of contemporary art. 

My fine art website is www.peintureyuko.com