Yutori

For the lucky among us, this last year was a kind of enforced simplifying. So many of our routines were stripped away that—if we could get to the other side of fear and isolation and sadness—we were left with elbow room, an “absence of rush” we’d perhaps forgotten was possible. For the very luckiest of us, that allowed moments of unexpected peace, creativity, and deeper connection. This is what the Japanese refer to as yutori—living with a feeling of spaciousness, especially with respect to time. Undeniably, there was a lot that was hard for me in the last year, but these paintings are a result of the yutori I found in the studio.

Christine Gedye, May 2021