Vida Mikaila-Kabaila
Nippon-no-kokoro

Vida Kabaila, "White Lotus", 78 x 61,
Chinese ink and watercolour, 1998

Vida Kabaila, "Three Immortals"
(from a Chinese legend).50 x 55cm
Ink and water colour. 1999

Vida Kabaila - "Peony", Chinese brush, rice paper,
watercolour

Vida Kabaila - "Lotus", Chinese brush, rice paper,
watercolour
The painter's aesthetic and emotional feelings for and her intellectual perception of Japanese art, and in particular the Sumi-e style of painting, of which she is an exponent in Australia, were rewarded with the above unusual compliment by professor Yama nouchi at her private picture exhibition in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu in 1976.
It is noteworthy that Vida Kabaila, a Lithuanian steeped in the North-Eastern European cultural and artistic traditions, was able to feel an affinity, an empathy with Chinese brush painting and the Japanese Sumi-e style to such an extent that recognition came from cognoscenti in the country of its origin. Indeed " Nippon-no-kokoro means literally " Japanese heart ".
What gave the impetus to Vida Kabaila to channel her creativity into the mold of Sumi-e art? As far as the artist can remember, the first stirrings of love for Oriental art came from a Japanese tea set in her mother's bone china collection. Her young mind was delighted with the translucent quality of the porcelain, the exotic hand painted figures and ornamental details rendered in a restricted palette. Quite unconsciously, at that stage, she was intrigued by the apparently simple and yet highly sophisticated composition from which every superfluous

Vida Kabaila, "Fish" , 64 x 79 cm. Japanese ink (sumi-e),1999

Vida Kabaila, "Landscape", 93 x 67 cm,
Chinese ink and watercolour, 1998

Vida Kabaila, "Landscape" 87 x 61 cm.
Chinese ink and watercolour, 2000
detail was removed and in which empty surfaces counterbalanced the design and were an integral part of the composition.
Although the artist studied art in Stuttgart/Germany and at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney and came into contact with Japanese and Chinese art, her real initiation into Japanese art occurred in Tokyo at the Ota Shutei Sumi-e School. Later on she studied Chinese TAO and Japanese art with special emphasis on their similar and different aspects at the University of Texas. Back in Australia she kept up perfecting her Chinese brush painting techniques on rice, silkworm and Taiwanese paper at the noted Helen Ling Studio in Canberra.
To say that Vida Kabaila has painted many Sumi-e style pictures, would be an understatement. However, she avoids repeating religiously her choice of subject matter. The artist could be compared to a composer who develops variations on certain themes. Her pictures of blooms, bamboo, bird, fish, gnarled tree trunks, lotus flowers and many other are realistically conceived and having permeated her artistic being are recreated in an idealised, highly polished and self-contained form. Her lotus flower becomes the symbol of all the lotus flowers wherever they grow. The onlooker gets the impression of witnessing the transition from the microcosm to the macrocosm - an intrinsic trait of Sumi-e pictures. Neither does she differentiate between close, middle and farther backgrounds. No attempt is made to create the illusion of a perspective. On the contrary, her compositions are flattened and only the brush strokes indicate depth of colour thus highlighting contours. Vida Kabaila uses traditional colours like indigo, rattan (yellow), sienna and cinnabar ( red ) and all the shades of black to accentuate a tonality of nuances.
Vida Kabaila has had an one woman exhibition in Chicago in 1980. She has participated in over 20 major group exhibitions in Australia and in Lithuania. She is represented in art galleries in Vilnius/Lithuania, the Samogitian Museum in Plunge/Lithuania and in many private collections.


Isolde Pozelaite-Davis, AM Sydney, 2001