The Midday Sun (Oil on Shikishi)

Ships from Japan.
The Midday Sun is an original oil painting on Japanese shikishi board by French artist Sébastien Coueffic, part of his Architecture series created for Art San Gallery. This composition captures a residential façade flooded with sunlight, its clean geometry softened by the arching shadow of a palm tree.
 
Executed in vibrant oil, the painting contrasts the solidity of a red chimney wall with soft beige façades, crisp window frames, and a deep blue sky. The palm’s organic form introduces a rhythmic counterpoint to the angular architecture, anchoring the composition in a distinct visual tension between built form and natural silhouette.
Coueffic’s approach evokes the early California works of David Hockney, particularly in the use of flat, saturated color and a compositional clarity that feels both intimate and cinematic. Like Hockney, Coueffic captures the light and heat of the moment not through realism, but through a visual language of color blocks and restrained detail.
 
Painted on a traditional shikishi board, the gold-edged format enhances the painting’s object quality while encouraging close, focused viewing. The scale supports Coueffic’s exploration of urban atmosphere—offering a condensed image that feels timeless, familiar, and composed with poetic restraint.
 
The Midday Sun exemplifies Coueffic’s ability to transform everyday architectural fragments into painterly meditations on color, form, and place.