Awkward hand movement. Loud glass clinking. A number of tiny pieces thicking on the ground. In desperate attempts to fix a ceramics, we are always trying to bring it's original look without any crack traces. For no reason though. Japanese people, quite the opposite, underscore the imperfection of broken jar. For what reason? A Man meets a lot of challenges in the course of a lifetime. The stream of time flows through each one of us, leaving a lot of seams and scars on it's witness. Just like the dishes, we happen to break apart by falling on a hard surface of fatum and then try hard to stick ourselves together again. As the time passes, we are not naive anymore and start changing our view by accepting all the challenges on our way. Those passed ones are not what we wish to forget and leave behind anymore but they become a part of our personality, a seed, from which our character grows. Kintsugi Art teaches us to value the experience, not to hide it. The Illumate is going to present his new conceptual mini-album soon, which has Kintsugi as it's fundamental idea. I have been working on it's design during all december and now I share my work with you. 

    

  

  

  

    

    

The whole philosophy of this art lays in accepting of imperfections and flaws. Japanese aesthetics highly appreciates details, catching attention to the wear from subject using. From this point of view kintsugi wins for both sides: the practical side, allowing you to continue to use the thing after it was damaged; and aesthetic side, highlighting repaired cracks and signs in the context of the continuation, but not the end, of its life. Kintsugi like wabi-sabi teaches to cherish simple, unpretentious and aged. Kintsugi doesn't hide the traces of damage, but even more, it also highlights them, reminding us about the frailty of life and the vicissitudes of fate, either passed and upcoming. 

EP consists of three tracks – Imbalance, Shattered To Pieces and Kintsugi. The three stages a man passes through fighting with his inner demons. My main goal was to show the instability, that a person is experiencing during the "Imbalance" phase. To achieve these condition, Me and Illumate decided to use the blue shades (blue symbolizes doubt, depression) and to deform the whole composition of this cover's elements. Through trial and error I found an organic background. I used a lot of grunge textures, which were deformed into some kind of dust during a hurricane. 

"Shattered to pieces" is the second stage. It is the phase in which a person breaks down under the weight of his problem. Just like the pot. This track is about a creative collapse. We've chosen my recent work-gift as a reference. This is the Chinese hieroglyph "Friendship". The colours and the overall structure of the hieroglyph perfectly capture the atmosphere of the inner battle of existential anguish. Red colour symbolises danger and internal strife, anger, desire for revenge, perhaps. I've broken my Hieroglyphs, added space to letters, which is typical for brushes, grunge and splashes of ink. Tonnes of paper haven't been spent in vain, because the result exceeded all expectations. “Gradient map” is a great tool for coloring your design, it’s the best way to make a right mood. 

The final stage of the battle. Man finds harmony, learning from past experience. Own mistakes make its appearance, give the individual character. Like a bowl pitched a person acquires an integrity, but does not become the same. His problem - his precious experience that makes him who he is. Hieroglyphics, crashed like a bowl, were glued together by means of gold. The main metaphor album finds its completion in the cover.