Kitada Aya, underwater paintings (Musashino Art University festival 2026)

What it is, and who made it

Four views of paintings hung on pegboard: looking up from under water toward the surface, in teal and deep green, with branches or figures crossing the surface.

Parts, layer by layer

• Palette: #304242, #1b2c2f against the white wall #e5dfd7 (M).
• Depth: values darken and greens deepen toward the bottom of each canvas (O).
• Surface: a lighter band where the surface is seen from below (O); refracted shapes above it (I).
• Measures: wavelength 0.107, spectral slope 2.46, edge softness 7.75 (soft, M).
• Fluid reading: refractive index, opacity, stratification; additive light; caustics and reflections; refraction, layering.

The framework behind it

The view from inside the medium: light enters through a bright window at the surface (Snell's window, inferred) and is absorbed with depth, red first, so the colour cools and darkens downward.

The same idea in distant fields

• Underwater photography and diving.
• Atmospheric perspective (the same absorption, in air).
• Stained glass seen from inside a nave.

Dual edge

Immersion can overwhelm; a site that floods the view should let the reader surface.

Measured

Concepts

• absorbency
• air
• aperture eye
• cloud mist
• code
• depth planes
• dispersion
• edge softness
• glass
• growth branching
• identity name
• law beer absorption
• law snell
• layering
• light
• opacity
• paper
• pigment
• projection depth
• reflection
• refraction
• ribbon
• saturation hue
• stratification
• water
• wave form

All studies