A Letter from Marshall Geoffrey Lock

I was born and raised in a quiet mill town in the UK, where the steady hum of working-class life wove itself into the fabric of my being. The towering smokestacks, the worn hands of laborers, the hushed whispers of the countryside beyond the town’s edge—these were my first teachers. Though formal artistic training was beyond my reach, I found solace in the raw, unpolished beauty of my surroundings. The way light filtered through an old workshop window, the grain of weathered timber, the shifting moods of the landscape—these became my earliest lessons in observation and form. With no mentor to guide my hand, I taught myself to paint and carve, driven by necessity, curiosity, and an insatiable need to translate the unspoken into something tangible.

Even before I set foot in Japan, I felt a quiet resonance with its aesthetics and reverence for the natural world. When I moved here in 2018, it felt less like an arrival and more like a return to something I had always known. The philosophy of transience, of beauty found in imperfection and ephemerality, aligned seamlessly with the artistic language I had been cultivating for years. It was here, amidst the shifting light of the seasons, the moss-laden temples, and the hushed snowfall over wooden bridges, that my work found new depth—a deeper stillness, a quiet echo of something timeless.

My studio, Shinrabansho (森羅万象),is named after a concept that holds deep significance in Japanese thought: the idea that everything in existence, from the smallest leaf to the vast heavens, is interconnected. In this philosophy, art is not a force imposed upon nature, but rather a voice drawn gently from it—an ongoing conversation between the land and the artist, between what is seen and what is felt. I do not seek to capture nature, but to listen to it, to translate its whispers into color and form.
This belief lies at the core of my practice. Whether working with oil, acrylic, or wood, I strive not just to depict landscapes, but to reveal their inner life—the emotions that linger in misty valleys, the echoes of time etched into ancient stones, the quiet dialogue between shadow and light. My paintings are not merely representations; they are invitations—to step into a world where the visible and invisible intertwine, where the land itself breathes with memory and meaning.
The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, with its embrace of impermanence, imperfection, and the quiet dignity of the weathered and worn, has profoundly shaped my artistic vision. I am drawn to the fleeting moments that exist on the threshold—twilight dissolving into night, the golden hush of autumn’s last leaves, the rhythmic erosion of stone by water. These are the spaces where beauty lingers, where time slows and reveals its poetry.

I have had the privilege of holding solo exhibitions in the UK, where my work first found its audience. Since relocating to Japan, my journey has continued with exhibitions in Tokyo, including at the Ikeda Modern Art Museum and the Tokyo Fuchu Art Museum. Each exhibition has deepened my dialogue with Japanese aesthetics, offering me the opportunity to share my evolving vision with a wider audience.

Now based in Tokyo, I continue to paint, sculpt, and exhibit across Japan. My hope is that each piece I create serves as more than an image—that it becomes a portal, a quiet space where the viewer can step into the unspoken dialogue between land, light, and spirit. In this space, the seen and the unseen converge, and the quiet voice of nature, so often overlooked, reveals itself to those who choose to listen.