It must be Spring

Ben Kimura - Cherry Blossom

I have a soft spot for Ben Kimura's romantic, chocolate box world.

His pictures are populated by handsome, wistful, young men,

and this one drawing on his heritage of traditional Japanese art

and the love of nature has a simple beauty about it.

In springtime a young man's fancy turns to love they say

But in reality Cherry Blossom time in Japan is usually quite cold

and this young man sits quite alone with nature,
distracted from his studies and reading

There's  often a sense of 'apartness' in Kimura's art.
He expresses one of the essences of the gay condition - isolation.
Which is especially raw in youth and returns to bite in old age.

This seemingly sentimental image has hidden depths.