▶ 2025-11-29 [Award] Certified as an Honorary Artist of the Japan-Taiwan Art Association
Certified as an honorary artist by the Japan-Taiwan Art Association
My ink-and-ink piece “Prancing Horse: Rai Zen” was highly praised at the Taiwan-Japan Art Exchange Exhibition.
I was recognized as an Honorary Artist of the Japan-Taiwan Art Association this season, and received a certificate of commendation.
This recognition was published in the 91st issue of Bunten.
My work is held in prefectural libraries, embassies, art museums, and libraries throughout Japan, as well as Tokyo. It has also been featured in the Taiwan-Japan Art Association’s catalog.
The Taiwan-Japan Art Association is also celebrating its 50th exhibition, and I believe it will be a major turning point for the future.
Although many of Japan’s leading artists, calligraphers, and visual artists exhibited at this exhibition, overcoming strict hurdles, only 24 were recognized as Honorary Artists, and of those, only three were ink-and-ink artists.
I believe it was a great success to exhibit these masterpieces by such wonderful artists at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a magnificent memorial facility and park in Taipei that was built to commemorate Taiwan’s first president, Chiang Kai-shek.
It’s a place that is difficult to display.
This time, the exhibit combines Wata-ya Zenbei’s Kanuma Kumiko and Karasuyama Washi paper with Arakawa Kasumi’s brushless ink painting (finger ink) to create a new form of traditional cultural art. The prancing horse, always moving forward and never retreating, is framed with a Kanuma Kumiko sesame pattern design. This is a unique and rare framing, even globally. Sesame represents “health,” “longevity,” and “good health,” matching the meaning of the prancing horse.
The title of the work, “Rai Zen,” combines the Buddhist words “rai” (future) and “zen” (meditation/enlightenment), and refers to “enlightenment in the future,” “the state of Zen to be reached,” and “the transmission of Zen truths from heart to heart (telepathy).”
Art is, above all, something to be seen, heard, and felt, and while words are certainly important, I believe it can be conveyed telepathically even without words.
Arakawa Tsubasa’s ink paintings pierce the heart in just one second the moment one sees them… There are many such works, and the moment one sees them, a conversation is born between the viewer and the work.
