“Since I am not so good at making words to describe what I think and want, I choose to draw. And since I love to see the harmony in beautiful color relationships to emphasize
the stories among everything that surrounds me in the real world, what I see and what I draw, I choose to paint,” Mari Inukai shared at the opening of her GR2 show, “Marilla Blue and Orange.”
Mari Inukai with her art at the opening of Marilla Blue and Orange”.
The exhibition blurs the lines of her signature worlds, in terms of her narrative and artistic styles. As her Calarts student film “Blue and Orange” played on a screen overhead, she added, “Maybe I sound too dramatic, but the real world and fantasy world are equally important for me to live in.” In addition to her new paintings (previewed here), which she describes as a mixture of Taoism, harmony and balance, nostaligia, fantasy, reality and dreams, the show also features her process sketches.
These pieces compliment Inukai’s upcoming, self-produced picture book, “Marilla Blue”- about her alter-ego character “Marilla Blue”, a blue devil anti-hero. Using blue as her primary color, Inukai paid close attention to the emotional impact of its color relationships inorder to tell her story. To her, blue is water, sky, sadness, loneliness, calm, and safe, and changing all the time- while orange is light, sunshine, fire, and warm hugs. She considers blue and orange her own personal ying-yang, balancing eachother but never touching. She adds, “One thing I always do when I have solo show- I draw or paint my daughter Sena first. She is my inspiration and lucky charm, and I will never change my aesthetics, but I hope I am able to draw and paint, better.”
“Marilla Blue and Orange” by Mari Inukai is now on view at GR2 through November 12th.
Opening tomorrow, 
Tomorrow, Giant Robot's 
In 2016, the watercolors of 
Los Angeles based artist