ASIA WEEK NEW YORK EXHIBITION
Banquet of Life: Nihonga Paintings by Daisuke Nakano
March 19 – April 18, 2026
Opening Reception with Artist: Thursday, March 19, 5-8pm (kindly RSVP)
Artist Talk: Saturday, March 21, 1-2pm (kindly RSVP)
AWNY Special Hours: Mar 19–21, 11am-6pm, Mar 22, 12-5pm, Mar 23–27, 11am-6pm
We are pleased to announce Banquet of Life: Nihonga Paintings by Daisuke Nakano, the Japanese painter’s long-awaited third New York solo exhibition, coinciding with Asia Week New York 2026. Eleven new works, on view from March 19 to April 18, 2026, mark the pivotal transition of seasons. Daisuke Nakano celebrates the natural world through glorious depictions of flora and fauna: blanketed in shimmering snow, at the turning point of the springtime thaw, and in full blooming colors.
Native to Kyoto and a master of Nihonga painting traditions, Daisuke Nakano (b. 1974) draws upon historical Japanese image-making to paint bright scenes of nature in a state of undisturbed purity. Each pigment is ground from rare and precious minerals mixed with nikawa, deer-collagen glue, and placed upon a background of gold and silver leaf on washi paper in keeping with the methods developed in Japan for centuries. Nakano’s influences draw primarily from paradigms codified during the height of Edo (1615–1868) aesthetics, which often centered imagined landscapes and the life teeming therein.
Nakano stands out as a luminary force among those few remaining Nihonga traditionalists today, evoking classical ideas and pushing them to their limits of color, composition, and craftsmanship. His scenes are overflowing with flourishes of complementary colors and dynamic interplay of lively bodies of birds, insects and flowers. Though filled to the point of bursting, Nakano’s canvases strike a balance even as forms and colors overlap with spirited energy. Each line—the primary pictorial tool of Nihonga painters—captures personality and movement with animated grace.
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UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Shimijimi: Dyed and Inlaid Textiles by Shigeki Fukumoto
April 30 – June 6, 2026
Opening Reception with Artist: Thursday, April 30, 5-8pm (kindly RSVP)
Artist Talk: Saturday, May 2, 1:30-3pm (kindly RSVP)
We are pleased to present Shimijimi: Dyed and Inlaid Textiles by Shigeki Fukumoto, the master Japanese textile dyer’s debut solo exhibition from April 30 to June 6, 2026.
The exhibition of dyed Japanese cloth features more than twenty two-dimensional works and folding screens from across three decades of his distinguished career. Blurring the line between painting and the traditions of Japanese textile, Fukumoto’s unique wax resist (rozome) and cloth inlay (nunozoukan) techniques, using precious Turpan cotton, explore expressions of color, light, and layering within the long-established language of dyeing (senshoku).
Shigeki Fukumoto (b. 1946) provides a philosophy and process that cannot be defined by classical ideas of textile. His sensational dyes permeate beyond the surface of the fabric and sink into the fibers in contrast to the interwoven picture-making of Western textile arts. Fukumoto hails from Kyoto, where textile dyeing is more rich in history and there is a greater density of traditional cloth dyers than anywhere else in Japan. Fukumoto took up the mantle of his family’s kimono dyeing business from the mid 1960s until 1987 after studying oil painting at university. Mastering the strict techniques of wax-resist cloth dyeing—a cultural heritage dating back one-thousand years—Fukumoto began to share his constantly expanding expertise as a professor at Osaka University of Art.
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About the Gallery
Ippodo Gallery is a cultural bridge to Japan’s living master artists. Founded in Tokyo (1996-), the New York gallery (2008-) presents fine handcrafted and rare works created using traditional materials and methods. Each piece selected embodies Japanese aesthetic sensitivity that is born of a spiritual bond with nature. Ippodo’s exhibition program features unique objects — fine ceramics, lacquerware, metal crafts, sculpture, paintings, and works on paper — that celebrate human invention, the natural world, and sublime beauty.
