Art as an antidote for homesickness

I am very far from home as I write this. Jet lag hit me harder than usual; the language barrier means any prolonged conversation I have is with my husband; I eat out for every meal; and the general lack of routine has left me feeling untethered. An easier way to describe the feeling is low-grade homesickness—despite having a truly amazing time.

There is only one tried and true antidote for this feeling: art.

I’ve always found visiting paintings in museums like visiting old friends. They might be new to me, but like meeting a sibling of a good friend, you notice and are drawn to their similarities. An unearned familiarity forms. Art as an antidote for homesickness.

Even the experience of walking through an exhibition can be enough of a balm. I don’t need to be familiar with the artist to mirror the familiar and practiced movement of wandering a room with cascading ceilings, leaning in to read a wall label, meditating on a painting, before zig-zagging towards the next thing that catches my eye.

At the Artizon Museum in Tokyo, I was surprised by a painting of a man playing the piano by Gustave Caillebotte—who I know mainly for his painting The Floor Scrapers, which I saw a couple of years ago at the Musée d’Orsay. Young Man Playing the Piano couldn’t be more different than The Floor Scrapers; instead of workers, an affluent man sits and practices the keys. But when I looked closer at his hands, I saw a similar strain. A reaching of the fingers, echoing the extension of an arm. The reflection of the fingers in the sheen of the piano creates a doubling effect that is also present in The Floor Scrapers. Here it is—a familiar friend that acts as the first of many tethers connecting me back to who I am.

The reason for the trip to Tokyo was to attend Keiran Brennan Hinton’s solo exhibition at Maki Gallery, his second in the space. I’ve watched as Keiran worked on the exhibition over the course of a long and very cold winter in Toronto. He would paint me as I sat on the couch and knit—sweaters, cowls, cardigans, anything to keep warm. Sometimes our cat would make an appearance and be immortalized in a few swift strokes of the paintbrush. Keiran painted himself reflected back in our window looking over the Toronto skyline, a piece of apple I left discarded on a plate, a bouquet bought to brighten up the March lull. The exhibition is a sliver of life, a memoir of five months of domesticity.

Here was my life on display, 10,000 kilometres away. The experience was jarring, unlike any other exhibition I’ve been to. My brain couldn’t compute: there I was, so accurately depicted and right in front of me, yet the experience felt so far away. It’s as if I’m frozen in amber in the paintings, my first thought being: what are you doing here! My second thought: I really wish I kept one for myself to remember the winter by.

We’ve been using the newly opened Soho House Tokyo as a rest stop, dropping in whenever we need a minute to plan our next move and have a coffee. What was meant to be practical became so much more when I realized how great their art collection is. A quick walk through the cafe had me exclaiming multiple times and pointing to paintings I loved.

A painting by Tomona Matsukawa, whom I recently saw at Independent in New York; Keita Morimoto, a fellow Canadian; Aya Higuchi, a new favourite.

Not historical or disarmingly personal, these artworks reconnect me with the contemporary art market. A place for respite, and to be surrounded by art I love.

As we inch towards the end of our time in Japan, an irony arises. Instead of trying to find familiar works that ground me in the past, I become intent on finding pieces to bring into the future. A ceramic jug to live on the mantel, a lantern to hang in my office, a custom-dyed furoshiki, a little Miffy won at a gachapon machine. These mementos will travel home with us—a way to tether us back to Japan.

🌄🌄🌄

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