FUMIYO YOSHIKAWA
Sunlight glances through a workshop window and illuminates a delicate orchid plant. Fumiyo Yoshikawa, master sumi-e artist, captures the graceful bend of the leaf with a deft hand. Her whisper strokes breathe life into black ink as the image unfolds on the shikishi board. What is seen with the eye is infused with an imaginative spirit. The boundaries of life and the cycle of nature’s energy unravel the artist’s intimate belief, “All creatures in heaven and earth come from the same root as myself”, and ‘All things and I are one in substance- the vision is projected in my artwork.’
Born in Japan’s legendary city of Kyoto, she grew up with an affinity for ancient Japanese art. Yoshikawa’s first childhood memory of seeing sumi-e was a scroll hanging in her grandfather’s house. Captivated by her grandfather’s prized possession, she later visited antique markets with him at Touji and Kitano-tenmangu as a curious eight year old. Her love of old and beautiful things inspired her interests in traditional painting methods and art history. Her later enrollment in Kyoto University of Education focused her artwork in Japanese brush painting nihonga (a traditional genre that uses natural pigments-minerals, clay, plants, insects, gold, silver, etc.- suspended in washes to create paintings of luminous layered color). Upon graduating, Fumiyo exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Kyoto Museum, Takashimaya Fine Arts Gallery and was invited to joint the exclusive and invitation-only prestigious Nihonga Arts Association of Kyoto.
Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004, Yoshikawa has been dedicated to introducing the aesthetics of the Japanese culture to an expanded audience through her art exhibitions, lectures and demonstrations of sumi-e and nihonga at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Colorado Mesa University and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco. Her website ‘Art of Brush’ at http://www.fumiyo-y.com/ offers considerable evidence of her abstract and representational artistry that extends the boundaries of consciousness and memory.
The Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council’s, “Treasures of Japan: Sumi-e, Bonsai and Photo-Haiku” on May 4-5, 2019 at the Pleasanton Senior Center, is indeed fortunate Yoshikawa has agreed to demonstrate her artistry and teach a class in sumi-e. The Saturday demonstration is free and open to the public. The class is limited to prior sign-ups. Please visit http://www.pleasantonarts.org for additional information. While the two day free Treasures event showcases many aspects of the Japanese culture, the exhibiting of some of Fumiyo Yoshikawa’s artwork at the Pleasanton Senior Center, May 4-5, 2019 takes on special importance because it precedes her workshop at the Crocket Museum Sacramento in June and her 2019 solo summer show at the Gallery Hillgate in Kyoto.
The sunlight has shifted in the workshop and a cloud shadow envelopes the room. The chourya brush lifts from the shikishi board with a final stroke, finding the cradle on the table. Yoshikawa’s skilled sumi-e artistry unveils the organic truth of simplicity, her fascination of birth and the passing of all creatures in the universe. Mounted on a bended leaf is an imaginary suzumushi insect -further testament to fleeting existence and yet the permanence of the infinite cycle of life and death.
Written by Jan Coleman-Knight; interview of Fumiyo Yoshikawa, March 11, 2019.