LOUISE KIKUCHI: Lines and Dots
March 5th- March 28th
Louise Kikuchi, All the Summers I Have Seen, sumi and gansai on paper, 9.5 x 9.5 in, 2020
Louise Kikuchi was born and raised in Hawaii and has lived in Tokyo, Paris and Seattle, as well as other cities in the United States. The artist taught at Western Washington University as an Associate French professor from 1979 up to her 1996 retirement. It was during the 90's that she became acquainted with Dana and Toni Ann Rust, the owners of the Edison Eye Gallery. Kikuchi was painting plein air on the banks of the Edison slough when Dana approached her. They became friends and she often showed her work at the Eye alongside Clayton James, Joel Brock and Joseph Goldberg.
Kikuchi had studied art since the 1960's in Hawaii and at the Sorbonne in Paris. She also studied sumi-e with Hashimoto Torin, Tokyo in tne early 1980's. This was the medium that became her passion. Sumi is a carbon based ink used as a medium in calligraphy and paintings of China, Japan and Korea. Unlike western water colors, sumi ink bonds with the paper and once painted becomes permanent.
i.e. is pleased to welcome Louise Kikuchi for a solo exhibit.
Louise Kikuchi, Rain and Stars, sumi and gansai on paper, 21 x 19 in, 2020
LOUISE KIKUCHI: Lines and Dots
"The brush in the medium of sumi only paints lines and dots. Theses strokes evoke the rain, sky, horizons of my paintings. In many ways, I feel the continuation of the cave drawings of bison, reindeer and other animals from 35,000 years ago. We still create images which are significant to us in some way.
I also painted wooden dolls, who represent ordinary people experiencing the past 12 months. They are a front-line worker, a little boy with a Trump balloon, a voter, a Black Lives Matter demonstrator and someone looking at his cellphone on January 6, 2021. These traditional dolls are called kokeshi in Japanese. I find them in second-hand stores, sand away the original patterns, then paint them into new forms. The same paints are used for sumi and kokeshi dolls. "
Louise Kikuchi, Kokeshi, wood and sumi, various sizes 7 - 111 in, 2020