Born in Izumi, Osaka, Japan. She grinds sand brought back from the Sahara Desert in a mortar and uses Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) techniques to paint the light and shadow of the desert and her shifting memories of it. She has been selected for the Genten exhibition many times and has also shown in exhibitions such as KUNIBIKI'24 at the Shimane Art Museum. At Jogonin, she shows "Sahara."
Mizue Kitamura
Japan
⬤ Works in 2026
Sahara (painting, Nihonga)
⬤ Message
I paint the Sahara, a foreign land.
I bring its sand home, grind it in a mortar, and use Nihonga techniques to turn my feelings from the journey into paintings.
Where I go is the bleak desert of the Sahara, yet it holds an ever-changing beauty of form:
"the wind of the Sahara and the endless universe," light and shadow,
"expressing this very moment." Seeing a sky full of stars with the camels, I carve the desert into my heart.
Memories that shift with the passing of time, flowing away little by little —
I am sure that the curves I draw freely across the desert I remember so fondly become, before I know it, a painting.
Painting has no rules and nothing fixed; I simply keep painting afterimages, truly freely, borrowing from my memories.
⬤ Biography
2017 Selected, Genten exhibition (The National Art Center, Tokyo; a municipal art museum; Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art), 2017–2025
2017 Kansai Genten (Chausuyama Gallery), 2017–2025
2017 GENTEN / New Year Art Fair (Galerie Simon, Ginza, Tokyo), 2017–2025
2022 Jogonin Contemporary Art Exhibition (Jogonin Temple, Shiga), 2022–2024
2022 AT ARTS EXHIBITION, report exhibition of the Jogonin Contemporary Art Exhibition (Shiga Museum of Art), 2022–2024
2022 Contemporary Art International AU Exhibition (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art), 2022 and 2023
2022 Kobe Art Marché (Kobe Meriken Park Oriental Hotel), 2022 and 2023
2023 Osaka Kansai International Art Festival / Art Fair (Grand Front Osaka)
2024 KUNIBIKI'24 (Shimane Art Museum)
2024 4 ROOMS ART (caso)