DFN Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and prints by Keiji Shinohara.  Shinohara’s abstracted landscapes are painted in gouache on rice paper, or printed with water-based inks from woodblocks in the Ukiyo-e style - the traditional Japanese printmaking method dating to 600 CE.

Shinohara was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. After 10 years as an apprentice to the renowned Keiichiro Uesugi in Kyoto, he became a Master Printmaker and moved to the United States.  Since his arrival, he has promoted Ukiyo-e through his teaching, exhibitions, and collaborations with artists such as Balthus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Chuck Close, and Sean Scully.

Though Shinohara employs ancient methods in creating his woodblock prints, he also diverges from tradition by experimenting with ink application and different materials to add texture to his prints.  He personally executes all the steps involved in the printmaking process, from carving the woodblock to printing by hand.  Intrigued by the possibility of surprise in creating his prints, Shinohara responds to the process organically, negotiating with the material and the inherent characteristics of the wood.  Most prints require 12 to 15 blocks to complete, but Shinohara has also created prints using up to 100 blocks.  As Boston Globe critic Robert Young wrote in a review of Shinohara’s Worcester Art Museum exhibition: “To see a Japanese printer in action is not unlike witnessing a concert pianist dealing with touch and tone.”

Shinohara’s gouache paintings share the textures and subject matter of his prints, while embracing the immediacy and fluidity of putting brush to paper.  The resulting landscapes are the distillation of his personal experiences and emotional responses to his environment.  Elegantly understated, these works are a fusion of Japanese aesthetic and Western modernism.  Shinohara writes of his work:

For me, the story behind the work is very important; there is a sense of narrative that is very private.  The feelings and emotions that I convey through these abstract landscapes matter most to me.  Almost always my images are of nature, but it is the essence of the landscape that I want to express, not realistic accuracy.

Keiji Shinohara is currently a Faculty Fellow and Visiting Professor of Art and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  He has received grants from the Japan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and his work is in many public collections, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, and the Library of Congress.