Eric Jung

The painting is an interpretation of a 12th century Japanese “Waka” poem. “Perhaps it will be, that todays troubles one day, are sweet memories. What I used to call sorrows, I now remember with joy.” What we experience and feel today is often very different to how we remember it in the future. Today we feel the pain, tomorrow is hidden behind the hills of time. As Kirkegaard wrote: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”. The poem by Fujiwara no Kiyosuke is written in Japanese in the painting. It is the first of many inspired by Japanese poems. I lived and studied in Tokyo in my youth and have since been interested in Japanese culture and it is where I started to study art.