About Hiromi Watanabe

​

Hiromi Watanabe was born in Tokyo, and now lives in Nara.

Growing up, Watanabe filled the lonely gaps in her heart with constant reading, playing in the world of fantasy.

When she was a sophomore in elementary school, she encountered comics for the first time. 

In one of these comics, a priestess of berserkers led people to love.

From the shocking contents of this comic, she decided to aim to become a cartoonist and became an aspiring illustrator and painted on her own.

 

渡邉裕美は東京生まれ、奈良在住。

彼女は孤独感を抱えて育ったが、心の隙間を埋めるように本を読むことに夢中になり、幻想の世界に遊ぶようになる。

そして小学２年生の頃初めて漫画に出会う。異形の種族の巫女が彼らを愛で導くと言う作品だった。それを読んで衝撃を受け、漫画家を目指したかったが、イラストレーター志望となり、独学で絵を描き始める。

 

After a traumatic experience in her college years, she began to draw oil paintings of women with dark tones, putting her life into them.

Overtaken by an incurable disease, she began to suffer from depression. However, after a successful surgery, she could start to see light once again.

The chosen theme in her first solo exhibition in 1999 was "salvation". 

 

She also began to learn nude sketching and encountered many feelings within the human form. 

She usually had to draw nude women in black and white, but she found out that she could draw rough drafts in watercolors because drawing in colors was allowed when the models wore clothes.

These were colorful rough drafts drawn with reverberant colors that she believed the models portrayed.  She felt it was her original style of painting, including the portrayal of movement.

 

大学時代にショックな経験があり、自身を投影した女性の姿を暗い色調の油絵を描いてもいた。心を病み、難病にも罹ったが、手術が成功して光が見えてきた。１９９９年の初個展に選んだテーマは「救い」で、その後も想いを人型に託して描くために裸婦クロッキーを習い始める。着衣のある時は彩色可だったので水彩でクロッキーを描くことを思いついた。それはモデルの持つイメージカラーを感じ得て様々な響き合う色で描くカラフルなクロッキーで、線の動きもふくめ独自の画風だと想った。

 

In addition, she based her work on the concepts of impermanence, "Bomga Ichinyo", a Buddhist view. This Buddhism impermanence view that met Buddha and gods and feelings were in works of Ryu Mitsuse who writes SF and fantasy novels. This worked to heal her own mind.

She is greatly interested in "Mercy" and of Buddhism, of "agape (affection)", etc. from ancient Greek philosophy, which she likes to draw inspiration from.   The Bodhisattva image as the presence of salvation in soft tones of watercolors. 

Her pictures were dubbed “Picture of healing” “Picture of tenderness” , so she started to draw  pictures wishing for other people’s happiness.

 

また、「梵我一如」の概念や、仏教の無常観をベースにSF小説や幻想詩を書く光瀬龍の作品で出会った仏様や神々を想い、自身の心を癒すためにも制作。

仏教の「慈悲」や、古代ギリシア哲学の「アガペー（慈愛）」等にも強く関心を持ち、救いをもたらす存在として水彩のやわらかな色調で菩薩画などを描くようになる。

そうした絵は「癒される」「優しい絵」と言われ、彼女も「人の幸せを祈る想い」を込めて絵を描くようになる。

​

Now,she created pictures of smiling Bodhisattva and Maria, not from the angle of religion but from the sense of tenderness.

She has had 13 exhibitions so far. She also joined a number of group exhibitions in 4 different countries.

She has published books of poetry and painting. She also did the covers of ４ books. She sent her works to the International Art Fair (NY) last year.

 

今は宗教にこだわりなく、優しさをもたらすものと言う意味で菩薩やマリア像の微笑み、祈りの絵などを描く。

 

今まで１３回の個展を行い、４か国の海外も含め多数のグループ展にも参加。自身の詩画集も出版され本の表紙も４冊担当し、去年は国際アートフェア（NY）にも出品した。