Japanese micro-season: Kaiko okite kuwa o hamu (蚕起食桑)

Meaning: Silkworms begin eating mulberry leaves

In the traditional Japanese calendar this moment refers to the emergence of silkworms and the beginning of mulberry feeding, an important agricultural marker. Rigden adapts this seasonal moment to the northern European landscape.

In late spring buttercups bloom across meadows, transforming fields from green to shimmering gold. The painting reflects this luminous seasonal shift as colour spreads across the surface like sunlight over grass.

Imogen Rigden’s exhibition Micro Season takes inspiration from the traditional Japanese calendar of seventy two micro seasons, known as Shichijūni kō (七十二候). Rather than dividing the year into four broad seasons, this ancient system breaks the natural cycle into subtle seasonal moments lasting only a few days.

Each micro season observes a small shift in the natural world. Ice begins to form on streams, butterflies appear in the spring air, or insects retreat underground as autumn approaches.

Rigden adopts this poetic framework as a way of observing the landscapes of northern Europe. Working with water soluble oils, she builds layered paintings that evoke atmosphere, movement and memory rather than literal description. Her works translate fleeting environmental changes into colour, texture and gesture.

Together the paintings form a quiet meditation on time, landscape and the subtle rhythms that shape the natural world.