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Japanese people love taking hot baths, either at home, at a natural onsen, or at a public bath house. Decades ago, when bathing at home was yet to become, people depended on local public bath houses. Huge murals of Mt. Fuji were often painted on bathing area walls. These reminded older bathers of “good old Japan”. However, younger generations might not have seen these public bath house art works…

Today, I would like to introduce an interesting art project called “Furontia” (sounds like ‘frontier’ / ‘furo’=bath) by an Osaka based artist Naohiro Gonda. He paints Mt. Fuji on the walls of bathrooms in private homes. It looks quite unique and fun to see the magnificent spectacle of Mt. Fuji in a small bathroom.

Photo: http://www.gondanaohiro.com/furo.html

Mr. Gonda says, “While my friend was absent on a business trip, I stayed at his home to take care of his cat and painted the first Fuji on the bathroom wall. The medium is actually a water-based paint. It was my first time to work with this particular paint, but I found very effective and good to create with. After a short while my work began to spread by word of mouth.”  He’s painted six Fujis so far. It takes about four days to finish a regular size Fuji on a wall. Once he painted a big one which took up all four walls and needed 8 days to complete.

When involved with a project, Gonda paints all day long, living under the same roof as his clients, to build relationships with. That’s his style.  If I lived in a house of my own (now I live in a rented apartment), I would ask him to paint a big Fuji for me 😉

Source: Excite News

This is JAPAN Style!