Japanese micro-season: Taiu tokidoki furu (大雨時行)

Meaning: Great rains sometimes fall

This micro season describes the sudden heavy rains that arrive during late summer. The weather shifts dramatically as intense rainfall transforms the atmosphere and the landscape.

Rigden’s painting reflects the movement and energy of these seasonal storms. Fluid gestures and layered colour evoke rain sweeping across fields and skies heavy with gathering clouds.

Micro Season

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.