青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

For years, Setsuko Oba based herself partly in Paris, traveling from there to nearby countries in order to portray the people and places she encountered in watercolors and sketches that she turned into oils in Tokyo for final presentation. The Covid pandemic did away with that back-and-forth routine, leaving her feeling hollow—though she was filled again with joy indeed when she was able to walk the streets of Paris once more.

This book is divided into two chapters each focusing on the years before and during/after Covid. Its pages trace the ever-so-delicate transformations in Oba’s emotions and art over that difficult time and, in the process, present a signature collection of works by a solitary genius who combines a natural poetic instinct with a richly philosophical intellect.

Roughly ninety selected oils, watercolors, and sketches produced between 2018 and 2022, along with brief statements by the artist
Essay by art critic Tsutomu Mizusawa

Setsuko Oba was born in Wakayama Prefecture to a dealer of Japanese musical instruments and grew up surrounded by the koto, shamisen, and other implements of traditional Japanese culture. She enrolled in the distance-learning program of the Musashino Art University Junior College of Art and Design while working in a research laboratory at Kao Corporation. Today she pursues an active artistic career from her studios in Paris and Japan, showing her works mainly in solo exhibitions.