Memory’s Garden
2021
24 inches by 24 inches by 1-1/2 inches.
Acrylic on Wood Panel

Concept behind my Art is expressed in this passage from my short story “Kioku”:

The old woman paints a cone-shaped green mountain onto heavy white paper…. Her brush wavers as she streaks thinned cerulean blue across the remaining white expanse.
The young teacher approaches her: “a lovely picture,” she says.
“My hand used to be so steady,” the old woman laments, thinking of the fine calligraphic strokes that once had been hers.
“Look,” the teacher says,” the white you’ve left visible is like a bank of clouds sailing across the blue sky.”
“I don’t remember how the sky behind the mountain really appeared,” the old woman says.
“Maybe your hand has remembered for you,” the teacher says.

Shirley Asano Guldimann’s paintings explore what her hand remembers and intuits.