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“Water’s Edge in the Japanese Tea Garden” is part of my Natures series. Although I gather inspiration from the footpaths of a more traditional landscape artist, it is not the sweeping vistas, with dramatic horizons that move me. I am most intrigued by the beauty revealed in a delineated space, in which light and shadow play off nature’s layered density.

I was captivated by the exuberant pile up of lily pads in a corner of a pond in the San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden. This small world of floating platforms exists on its own edge, barely escaping watery submersions. I wanted to celebrate the vagaries of their colorations, capturing underlying hues, intensified by the prism of water drops and decay. On the water’s surface, another visual drama is playing out as the reflection of the dense foliage around the pond creates evocative abstract imagery that rivals the material world.

Juannie Eng

juannie_eng@yahoo.com