Jun'ichirö Ishida

I envision my art as promoting the positive essence of the human experience.

I want my paintings to wake up an audience from idling in the impermanence of the floating world and advance them to a level of consciousness embodied in the following declarations: Live the life. Now is the time. Focus and concentrate. I want to celebrate being alive in an interconnected realm. Absolute beauty resides in tranquility. I challenge the notion of self-serving, self-important, self-expressional art. Also, I contest the idea of art as protesting, criticizing, or merely reflecting our society. I would rather dedicate my work to preserving the good side of human nature rather than reducing it to a mere complaint. In working toward this mission, I distil and decant ingredients from my surroundings and strive to radiate them with pure energy.

To invest in the positive side of the human experience, I am committed to aesthetics. I have four guiding principles for art making: unexpected composition, skillfully and cleverly crafted forms, richness in color, and unique layering effects. According to these principals, manipulate dimension, form, and color. These ideas come from studying eastern traditional art, particularly Japanese art from the feudal era. I use elements such as stylized natural forms, Buddhist iconography, haiku poems, Chinese Buddhist mantras, Tibetan secret symbols, as well as composition and techniques from Asian art. By using East Asian traditions, I introduce the viewer to the Asian art tradition, a legacy as rich as Western art, yet often neglected. Besides being a messenger of what we identify as goodness, I would also like to redefine and revive the elegance of Asian art in post-modern times.


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