Artist Portrait

Nathalie Ishizuka – Creating Moments of Inner Silence

Born 1970, Paris, France
Currently residing and creating in Brussels, Belgium

Solo Exhibition: A Monastic Retreat amid Nature

Ishizuka’s first significant solo exhibition, spanning four months, took place in La Maison du Prieur, a serene monastery nestled within nature’s embrace, where the elemental forces converge in harmony and where she exhibited over twenty-seven works often meditating with visitors in front of paintings for which they had a particular affiliation. Ishizuka explains, “it is not just the painting, but the process in which the artist paints that can bring inner silence or joy to a viewer.” Two seemingly similar paintings painted in two different states of mind can have a very different impact.

Artist Profile

Nathalie Ishizuka, a Franco-Japanese artist from New York, is a unique fusion of East and West, inviting viewers on a journey into the inner universe.

Born in Paris in 1970, Ishizuka’s multicultural heritage deeply informs her work, drawing on influences from her Japanese and French lineage, including a Japanese grandfather who created the designs of ships and kimonos, a French Michelin starred chef, and a Zen psychiatrist father, member of the Salmagundi Art Club in New York.

Her art, initially unintended while writing and working with her father, Dr. Yukio Ishizuka, a zen like Japanese Havard trained psychiatrist who created a theory about the mind and a psychology of health, took a transformative turn following the 2011 Japanese tsunami, earthquake and nuclear crisis. This event, aligning with her a premonitory dream in which waves arose from all directions and the “only way out was in” prepared her to cross paths with Belgian philosopher Dr. Paul Briot, author of Le Rayonnant: Un Art de L’Infini. Briot’s vision of art as a medium to transcend crises and elevate human consciousness resonated deeply with Ishizuka, steering her toward a new artistic purpose.

Ishizuka’s journey saw her delve into the realms of meditation and art in Japan, where she spent time with various masters, embracing disciplines from shodo to nihon buyo and sumie amongst others. Her artistic evolution was a process of deep personal and spiritual discovery, culminating in a style that eschews traditional techniques for a more intuitive, meditative approach.

Her works, ranging from shodo ink to acrylics, and watercolor, embraces all that is subtle, including allowing her body to chose colours, forms and shapes of the work at hand and allowing silence after each brush stroke. The process of painting itself is a meditation and a reflection of her inner exploration and a quest for harmony among the four elements: earth, water, air and fire.

Today, a deep necessity to express in physical form what Dr. Paul Briot envisioned, what her meditation mentors taught and what one or two of her Japanese artist mentors achieved through a lifetime of devotion, has led Nathalie to start over: to consecrate all her time to painting in silence surrounded by nature.

Ishizuka’s art is a testament to her belief in the transformative power of beauty and inner silence, both in the artist and the viewer. Her commitment to breaking artistic boundaries, eschewing all techniques both in meditation and painting, and her dedication to simplicity and the heart, position her as a truly unique voice in the contemporary art world.

About the Artist and her Work from Introductory & Closing Remarks at the Japanese Embassy Exhibition, March 2024, Solo Exhibition with Performance

Education

Seishin Joshin High School Exchange Japan, Keio University Exchange Japan, Amherst College, B.A. USA, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy MALD, Boston USA, HEC MBA, Paris France, Self-Taught Artist

SOLO SHOWS

– Brussels, Belgium, Upcoming, Embassy of Japan, Belgium, Kizuna: The Bonds that Unite, March 4th 2024 to March 22, 2024. Opening Event March 7 with Composer & Pianist Ayumi Nabata, Saxophonist Yuina Takamizo and dancer and choreographer Miko Shimura.

– Brussels, Belgium, Rouge Cloitre, Maison du Prieur, (Restored Monastery), Exposition Kizuna Time Series, January 20 2024 – January 31 2024

– Brussels, Belgium, Rouge Cloitre, Maison du Prieur, (Restored Monastery), Exposition Inter-Sections, January 28 – May 28 2023. Four Month On-going Solo Show, Extended Several Times

– Brussels, Belgium, Living in the Four Elements.  2020-2022, Home Gallery upon Invite Covid Friendly

– Singapore, Singapore Meditative Gallery [Individual Appointment Only]  2017-2019, Experience Meditation through Art, two hour private meditation sessions with art

GROUP SHOWS

– Brussels, Belgium, Selected works selected through contest and exhibited by city of Audgerhem, (Brussels, Belgium) City Cultural Center, including outside rotating display and brochure. September & October 2023.

– Brussels, Belgium, Outside Live Performance and Creation with Public and Mayor participation, Unconditional Love (112cm x 200cm) one month display in various OUTDOOR public locations of Brussels. Extended Public Display as of January 2024

– Biarritz, FRANCE.  Serres de Milady, December 2021 (300 + visitors Night Exhibit Opening in Storm)

– Singapore, SINGAPORE. Singapore Embassy of EU, January – June 2019, Selected Paintings, Six Month Loan

– Tokyo, JAPAN,   EU Embassy Residence Tokyo, Shimada & Meditations Ishizuka,  2016, Three Representation Evenings, & Poems by Philosopher Dr. Paul Briot

– USA, New York, Rye.  In the Gallery, Rye Library, July 2014 & Aug 2016, Ishizuka Family Group Exhibition 2 Exhibits

– CHINA, Student Exhibit Participation, 1986, two art works selected for China tour

Mentions in Rye Art Center, NY, USA & Art Magazine Greenwich Library CT, USA

DANCE OR MUSIC PERFORMANCES OR INTERPRETATIONS OF ART WORKS OF ISHIZUKA

BELGIUM. UPCOMING, Embassy of Japan, March 7, 2024. Ayumi Nabata, pianist and composer, Yuina Takamizu, saxophonist, Miko Shimura, dancer

BELGIUM.  Rouge Cloitre, Maison du Prieur.   Ayumi Nabata (composer and pianist) and Yuina Takamizu (saxophonist) spontaneous concert performance Monestery Exhibit Auderghem, Brussels Belgium Easter Sunday 9 April 2023

JAPAN.  Fukushima Café for Artists, Reading Café owned by narrator and actor, Akaboshi.    January 2014.  Story Kizuna written and Illustrated by Nathalie Ishizuka DANCED SOLO by the master Wakayagi, Masayasu, one of the five schools of Nihon Buyo.  Narrated by Akaboshi.  Gratitude for the timely translation of the story by Peter MacMillan, translator, print-maker, poet and Japanologist who teaches at the University of Tokyo.

• Kizuna is a story that is an interpretation of the Letter to Japanese Friends by Dr. Paul Briot and Nathalie L. Ishizuka adapted to a Japanese fable, The Crane Wife.  The drawings are inspired by Hokusai and the Crane is the white bobbin in Dr. Paul Briot’s poem “The White Spindle,” in The Radiant…An Art towards the Infinite? , 2018, Publisher Caractères, Collections : Cahiers & Cahiers.   Gratitude to Nihon Buyo Master Wakayagi Masayasu, Dorothy Britton, author of The Japanese Crane: Bird of Happiness and photographer Tsuneo Hayashida.  Special thanks to Sara Hitchens for helping us uncover the mystery of Hokusai’s red dot and black brush and Reiko Nagura for introduction to Nihon Buyo.

GROUP ASSOCIATIONS

ARTIST & DIRECTOR OF BEYOND OUR BEST, RE-INVENTING OURSELVES SILENTLY (2011-PRESENT)

We began with a few Japanese artists in Tokyo after March 11, 2011 and today invite other Japanese artists in Belgium as well as Belgian and European artists in the fields of painting, architecture, manga, literature, poetry, sculpture, photography, film making, animation, theatre, opera, ballet, choreography and music including composers and conductors, to join us. To create a new world, we look beyond what is possible and use our collective imagination to inspire audiences with moments of inner silence.

ASSOCIATION OF ARTISTES OF SERRES DE MILADY, NATURE & ART, BIARRITZ FRANCE, ARTIST ATTELIER 2022