About Artist
Y. S. Ichiki
Artist, Japan.
Ichiki is a self-taught artist who has loved various forms of art since childhood, including visual art, photography, and theater. Her early work includes combining art making with photography and digital manipulation to create promotional art for theatrical productions. Then, however, she experienced a winter period in her life, resulting in stopping her creative work.
After more than a decade of wandering the depths of despair, she resumed her creative endeavors in 2021. To her surprise, completely different, colorful works came pouring out of her hands than before. She is grateful for that miracle.
Ichiki’s current work is a fusion of dynamic happening by chance and delicate, steady effort.
Some time after resuming her creative work with acrylic painting, she began to use mixed media techniques, including fluid paints. Using fluid materials gives her art-creating process great unexpectedness. She found it similar to the dynamism experienced while performing on stage, as it is based on thorough preparation, on a series of decisions and actions taken while feeling the changes in the moment within a limited time before materials dry, and on the fact that it can never be reproduced again.
Furthermore, she uses steadily and delicately layering colors with each brushstroke using a variety of painting materials to add narrative to the work. In addition, she enjoys freely adding and combining photographic and digital art techniques.
Throughout the entire process, studying materials and colors is a cornerstone of Ichiki’s creative work. Recently, she has been particularly influenced by the colors and color schemes found in the nature of her native Japan and its ancient culture, such as the oceans that surround the country, the mountains that cover a large portion of the country, plants and food, Twelve-layered ceremonial kimono and so on.
Finally, the ultimate joy for Ichiki is to have states of flow (the so-called “zone state”) in her creative process. She also seeks opportunities to feel resonance through collaboration with other artists and other creative disciplines and interaction with the audience.
[Activity] (2021-Present)
2023/12/12-16 “Y. S. Ichiki Solo Exhibition #1” @ Gallery And Links 81 (Tokyo, Japan) – Solo Exhibition
2023/06/12-17 “AND LINKS Selection III” @ Gallery And Links 81 (Tokyo, Japan) – Selected Artist
2022/10/11-15 “Colors – Composition of colors -” @ Gallery And Links 81 (Tokyo, Japan)
2022/04/12-17 “The 47th ZEN Exhibition of Selected Artists” @ Daikokuya Gallery (Tokyo, Japan) – Selected Artist
2022/02/10-21 “The 31st All Japan Art Salon Painting Grand Prize Exhibition” @ The National Art Center, Tokyo (Japan)
2021/10/12-17 “The 5th ZEN Exhibition” @ The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (Japan)
2021/09/09-24 “DE.MO Lifestyle” @ MADS Gallery (Italy, Spain, Online)
[Awards]
2022 “The 31st All Japan Art Salon Painting Grand Prize Exhibition” – Two works won prizes
2021 “Luxembourg Art Prize” – Certificate of Artistic Achievement
2021 “The 5th ZEN Exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama” – Grand Prize
[Media & Review]
(As of January 1, 2024)
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