Nishiki Sugawara-Beda, artist, Dallas
Moderated by Jennifer Casler Price, senior curator of Asian, African, and Ancient American art
Nishiki Sugawara-Beda is a Japanese-American visual artist based in Dallas. In her paintings and installations, she draws upon her Japanese heritage to explore themes related to culture, language, and spirituality rooted in Zen Buddhism. Her inspiration is Zen artist and monk Sengai Gibon (1750–1837), whose quick and evocative manner expressed his religious views and playful attitude.
Connecting across space and time, Sugawara-Beda experiments in ancient Japanese materials and techniques, including sumi ink, kakejiku (hanging scroll) landscapes, and rice paper, to merge them with abstract and expressive forms familiar to the modern Western aesthetic. By using ink, Sugawara-Beda discovered a more authentic expression of her personal feelings, a process that she described as kokoro no naka kara or “from the heart.” Sugawara-Beda’s works are in private and public collections, including the Dallas Museum of Art. Currently an associate professor of art at Southern Methodist University, she also lectures nationally and abroad to promote cultural diversity and exchange.
What does the art of the past mean to the artist of the present? In this ongoing program, moderated by Kimbell staff, artists and architects discuss works in the museum’s collection, share the special insights of the practicing professional, and relate older art to contemporary artistic concerns, including their own. The program is free and requires no reservations.
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