Namiyo Kubo – Muralist with a Whale Passion

For several decades, Namiyo Kubo has painted giant murals at locations as diverse as Iceland, New York, Cuba, Australia, Korea, as well as many in her native Japan. Sometimes she covers parts of buildings in cloth; sometimes the building itself becomes her canvas, and in one fishing port in southern Japan, her work comprises a 60m long painted whale mural. This one she has to go back to every 2nd or 3rd year just to keep it freshly painted and in good repair.

I first met Namiyo in the early 1990s when she was painting the whales on the fishing port at Ogata, now called Kuroshio, Shikoku Island, Japan. I introduced her to my friend Asbjorn Bjorgvinsson (Abbi), they got on well, and she ended up painting the outside perimeter of the superb Húsavík Whale Centre. The colorful mural is the first thing that strikes you through the fog and mist when you sail into port.

When Namiyo isn’t doing murals, she loves to host painting workshops for kids such as those who were orphaned by the Kobi Earthquake. She uses dolphin and whale images as a springboard to get the kids to express their feeling with brush and color.

Tuesday, 12 September 2006

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