Nishiki Sugawara-Beda

Cris Worley Fine Arts in Dallas is pleased to announce our second solo exhibition with Nishiki Sugawara-Beda, Air Tales, which opens January 6th and runs through February 10th with an artist’s reception on Saturday, January 6th from 4 – 7pm. The artist will be in attendance.

The artmaking process of Nishiki Sugawara-Beda requires prior mental preparation to achieve a meditative quality in her paintings. The enigmatic series of KuroKuroShiro (Black, Black, White) captivates the viewer by the interplay of the washes of light ink and bold brushwork alluding to the old masters of monochrome ink painting. Her inspiration is Zen artist and monk Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) recognized for a quick and evocative manner to express his religious views and playful attitude. Gibon’s statement that his “play with brush and ink is not calligraphy nor painting” reflects the Buddhist concept of emptiness as an expression for the ultimate truth. Sugawara-Beda explores the idea of emptiness, which is prolific and absolute, as the abstracted shapes generate multiple meanings from the essence of formlessness.

Air Tales continues with the theme of emptiness so central to her work. This exhibition revolves around two large- scale scrolls in triptych configuration, the subject of both referring to the landscape. Here, Sugawara-Beda explores more negative space, more “airiness” allowing the viewer more opportunity for interpretation of the stories the land may hold.

Nishiki Sugawara-Beda was born in Japan and currently lives and works in Dallas, Texas where she is Professor of Painting at Southern Methodist University. She received her B.A. in Fine Arts from Portland State University and her M.F.A. in Painting from Indiana University. The Dallas Museum of art collected four scrolls for the permanent collection through the 2023 Dallas Art Fair Acquisition Fund. Sugawara-Beda has received several awards including a Seed Grant; Diversity Fellowship; International Enhancement Grant; Idaho Arts Fellowship; Sam Taylor Fellowship; Tusen Takk Foundation residency; and Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Fund have supported her artistic research. Her work is exhibited in international galleries and institutions and is in the public collections of Dennos Museum Center (Traverse City, MI); Diamond Society Hotel Kyoto (Kyoto, Japan); Morris Graves Museum of Art (Eureka, CA); National College of Naturopathic Medicine (Portland, OR); Opp Construction (Grand Forks, ND); Regent Properties (Dallas, TX); and Tusen Takk Foundation (Leland, MI). In February of 2024, Sugawara-Beda will exhibit Cotodama Converse, an installation of Japanese symbols on paper at NorthPark Center, in partnership with the Crow Collection of Asian Art, in celebration of Lunar New Year. This installation
also exhibited in late 2023 at The Leonor R. Fuller Gallery, Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts, Olympia, WA.

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Air Tales

January 6 – February 10, 2024

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