Energetic Connections: The Ki Paintings of Yoshio Ikezaki
Opening Reception:
Sunday, October 4, 1:30-3:30pm
Exhibition: October 4 – November 8, 2026
(Tuesdays – Saturdays, 10 am – 5 pm)
Shumei Hall Gallery, Pasadena
2430 East Colorado, Pasadena, CA 91107
https://shumeiarts.org/
Free Admission
Pasadena, CA – The Shumei Hall Gallery in Pasadena will present a solo exhibition of monochrome ink paintings created by Japanese artist Yoshio Ikezaki from Sunday October 4 through Sunday November 8, 2026. The exhibition will feature work created by Ikezaki over the past two decades, often using his ki to guide the ink and form beautiful abstract landscapes. Ikezaki will demonstrate his extraordinary painting technique at the Opening Reception for the exhibition, which will be held on Sunday October 4 from 1:30pm to 3:30pm.
In Chinese Daoist philosophy, ki (known in Chinese as qi or chi) is the life force or energy that permeates everything in the universe, and it flows through and around our bodies. For artist Japanese Yoshi Ikezaki, ki plays a key role in his ink paintings, enabling him to create evocative and deeply spiritual monochrome landscapes that appear to have been formed by the universe itself.
To paint, Ikezaki often uses his own sumi ink and washi paper – and his own ki. Before he begins, he practices meditation and concentration to unite his mind, body, and spirit and control his ki so that his intention and his intuition can work together in harmony. He wets the paper, applies ink, and then harnesses his ki to manipulate the flow of the ink through the paper fibers.
The resulting landscapes are subtle yet haunting, soaked not only in water and ink but also in the quality that the Japanese call yugen, meaning “mysterious” or “suggestive.” Much appears to lie beneath the calm surface of the lake or hidden among the trees. In the graceful balance of positive and negative space, Ikezaki invites us to contemplate ma, the essential, intentional space or pause that allows for meaning, structure, and possibility in art, conversation, life, and connection.
The exhibition is curated by Japanese art historian Meher McArthur and supported by Kylin Gallery, Beverly Hills. The Shumei Hall Gallery is located at 2430 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91107 and is open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm. For more information, visit www.shumeiarts.org.
About the Artist
Yoshio Ikezaki was born in Kitakyushu in Japan in 1953 and received a BA and MFA from Florida State University concentrating in painting. He then returned to Japan and studied traditional Japanese handmade paper (washi) making for 6 years in Yame in Fukuoka prefecture. He also learned how to make his own sumi ink. Since 1986, he has been living in the United States and Japan, working for many years as an art professor at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and at Tama University in Tokyo. As an artist, his work blends contemporary Western and Eastern painting styles and techniques.
“Ki is the essential element for my artwork. I use water as an active force to control the ink on wet paper. Ki serves to transform my will and intention to control the ink movement over the entire and local space of paper, for both even distribution of intended and/or accidental collisions of ink and water.” Yoshi Ikezaki
About the Curator
Meher McArthur is an Asian art historian specializing in Japanese art and has worked at Pacific Asia Museum and the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, both in Pasadena, Scripps College, Claremont, and JAPAN HOUSE LA. She curates local and traveling exhibitions, such as Sound of Water: Feminine Expressions of Fluidity at Descanso Gardens in La Canada-Flintridge (until January 3, 2027), Healing with Gold: The Art of Kintsugi on Ceramics and Beyond at the JACCC in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles (September 12 – October 18, 2026), and the traveling exhibition KIMONO: Garment, Canvas, and Artistic Muse, currently at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi. Her publications include Gods and Goblins: Folk Paintings from Otsu (PAM, 1999), Reading Buddhist Art (Thames & Hudson, 2002) and The Arts of Asia (Thames & Hudson, 2005), An ABC of What Art Can Be (Getty Museum, 2010), New Expressions in Origami Art (Tuttle, 2017), and her memoir A Japanese Art Journey (Tuttle, 2025). She lives in Pasadena, CA.