青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

This new work by Lombardy resident Ayumi Kudo follows on the long-selling success of Unmeasurable Things, published in 2018. For Now, I Blow Kisses to You was begun on March 10, 2020, the very day that the “Io Resto a Casa” stay-at-home order went into effect for the whole of Italy. Through trying days steeped in uncertainty and dread and weariness, the artist discovered unforgettable emotions and long-concealed feelings—and recorded those internal shifts, as in a journal, amid the worsening pandemic. The result is a book that lights hope in the hearts of all of us living in fear of the ever-evolving grip of Covid-19.

Ayumi Kudo was born in 1980 in Okayama Prefecture and graduated in painting from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara in 2010. In 2012 she received second place in the Premio Artivisive San Fedele and was also selected to participate in the Bologna Children’s Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition. She is now based in Europe.