SHIZEN
Opening RendezVous, Brussels Art Week : Thursday September 4, 2025 from 5 to 8 pm
Dates RendezVous, Brussels Art Week : September 4 - 7, from 11 am to 6 pm
Exhibition at the gallery : Opening Sunday September 7, 2025 from 2 to 7 pm - open until October 25, 2025
If I had to express my vision of painting, I would answer with a space for expression, free from the trends of contemporary art. In symbiosis with majestic nature, wherever we are, attentive artists and sensitive sensors, the work expresses itself beyond us by transposing intimate emotions onto a medium.
The artist is the sensitive intermediary of majestic nature. Art uses universal symbols; it has no borders: it is a link between individuals. It is also a link between past and future. One of my concerns is to make the most of the teachings of humanity's heritages, from East to West.
From the point of view of creative practice, we have lessons to learn from construction in space and in form. That's what I'm aiming for.
The permutation of light and darkness: this theme, addressed in 1999, expresses the foundation and meaning of my work. Like many of my colleagues, I'm challenged by the passage of time. I believe, however, that our experience can be translated into a single day. Time is not an ordered sequence. It is relative to each individual. Sunrise and sunset, hope and sadness, light and darkness: this is the real substance of our lives.
In my work, I use wood panels, plaster, gold leaf and gem powder. I use techniques such as egg tempera, scraping and polishing, among others. By these means, I've tried to express the contrast between light and darkness. It is a work of patience that requires a lot of time.
A patient process of stratification is engaged, which in itself is not a constraint for me, but rather an expression of time hidden in my work. Also, through the Japanese technique of urushi (lacquer) and other means, I have tried to express pure beauty. My desire is to express universal light and darkness. Expression of our joy and fear, confronted as we are with life and death.
I draw everything imbued with the spirit of both East and West. It is the art of the medieval icon, the ancient Buddhist mandala and the Japanese screen. Not in the divergence of these many cultures, but rather in an attempt at synthesis that also sums up my career. At present, it's movement that interests me: color, surrounded by a dynamic frame.
- Sei Arimori
