Shiho Fujiwara, originally from Tamba-Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture, studied the fundamentals under a master of ink painting before soon embarking on her own experimental approach. By soaking washi paper in ink, she creates works that incorporate the natural phenomena that occur during the drying process.

Fujiwara has held solo exhibitions in New York, Paris, and galleries across Japan, and her works are also in museum collections. Here, we trace the path that has brought her to the present day through her own words.

Starting Point: Calligraphy and the Encounter with Ink Painting

Artist's studio

- I’ve heard that you were interested in art from childhood. Could you tell us what first sparked your interest?

Fujiwara: My grandfather, Nikaku Fujiwara, was a Japanese-style painter, so that may have been an influence. I also studied calligraphy from the first year of elementary school. At the time, rather than pushing me to become a painter, my parents guided me towards it as part of a broader cultural education.

When I moved out to Kobe as an adult, I encountered the ink painting of Hozan Matsumoto, an ink painter. The tones of the ink were so beautiful that I wrote him a letter saying I absolutely wanted to study under him, and he allowed me to join. So in Kobe, at the age of twenty-six, I began attending his ink painting school in earnest.

About six months after I entered, he suddenly told me, “you should hold a solo exhibition.” I thought, “What? I’ve only just joined...” I still remember how all the other disciples around me fell silent for a moment, and a sharp tension ran through the room.

- At that time, how long did it usually take before an artist could hold their first solo exhibition?

Fujiwara: I think it depends on the person, but when I first began studying, I still didn’t really have the feeling that I was seriously aiming to become a painter. I was simply drawn to the beauty of ink tones. When I held my first solo exhibition, my teacher taught me everything in detail, from reserving the venue to how to greet members of the press and other relevant people. He said my first solo exhibition should be in my hometown, so it was held in a place like a public hall in Tamba-Sasayama. My brushwork was immature, but I received my teacher’s guidance.

Balancing Painting and Nursing: Building Gallery Connections on Her Own

The artist at work

- After that, did your artistic path proceed smoothly?

Fujiwara: My grandfather left me with these words: “If you are going to live as a painter, and if you don’t want to end up painting flattering pictures just to make a living, then you should have a job.” So I decided to become a nurse, thinking I should choose work that would deepen me as a person. I graduated from Kobe Municipal Higher Nursing School (now Kobe City College of Nursing) and worked for about ten years at Kobe City Central Municipal Hospital while continuing my art practice.

Later, a doctor who was opening a clinic said he very much wanted me to come work there. I replied, “Actually, I want to pursue art, and if I may continue doing that, then I will come.” He then offered me an empty house he owned and told me to use it as a studio, so I worked at that clinic for twenty-five years.

Without belonging to any organization, I held solo exhibitions every year from there. During that period, I also had two solo exhibitions in New York, and later exhibited in Europe - at the Nord Prefectural Office Hall in France and the Seine-et-Marne Prefectural Office Hall - through the international friendship and exchange program with Hyogo Prefecture, so I was supported by the Hyogo Prefectural Office in Paris.

Artist in her studio

- How did you expand your activities beyond Kobe?

Fujiwara: I held my first solo exhibition in Tokyo at Sayegusa Gallery, introduced to me by someone. The first time I brought my works there, they were figurative. But one year later, when I actually held the exhibition, every work on view was abstract. Yet the people at the gallery said nothing and exhibited the abstract works.

Later, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi told me, “You have to walk and find galleries yourself.” So I went from Kobe to Tokyo, threw my high heels into a station locker, changed into sneakers, carried my paintings, and walked all through Ginza. I didn’t want to show my work just anywhere; it had to be a place exhibiting work I truly thought was good. That was how I encountered Kamakura Gallery. The owner showed interest, but said their schedule was booked two years ahead. I replied that would be perfectly fine, and indeed they gave me a solo exhibition two years later, and after that they organized three more.

- Please also tell us about your solo exhibitions in New York.

Fujiwara: At the time, Takeshi Kawashima was in New York, and I had once met him in Kobe, so I sent him an email. He introduced me to about ten galleries. I wanted to have a solo exhibition, so I sent materials, and three of them replied. In the end, two of those galleries-Caelum Gallery and Walter Wickiser Gallery, both in Chelsea-held solo exhibitions for me. When one of the gallery owners told me, “the quality of your work is high,” it deepened my confidence. It renewed my determination: “I will devote my life to contemporary art using ink and washi.”

The Turning Point: Encountering Dark Clouds and the Path to Abstraction

Shiho Fujiwara presenting her work

- I’ve heard there was a turning point when you moved from ink painting to abstract expression. What kind of experience was it?

Fujiwara: Once, when I went on a sketching trip to Akiyoshidai in Yamaguchi Prefecture, I encountered a typhoon. Dark clouds came rolling down across the entire horizon. Looking at them from the hotel window, I thought, “This is what I want to paint!” I rushed back to my studio in Kobe, which I had at the time, and painted all at once on gasen paper. I was so forceful that the paper tore.

At that moment, I thought, “Ah, this tear—this is interesting.” I didn’t think of it as a failure. From there, I became interested in the phenomena itself that occurs between washi and ink, and I began pursuing them.

- You saw a landscape and thought, “This is what I want to paint,” yet then moved further toward abstraction. What was the emotional movement behind that?

Fujiwara: In my case, artistic expression is not so much about figurative things as it is about expressing the way I live, the force of being alive, the soul—things like that. I was born in 1944 in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, near Koshien Stadium, and soon after came World War II. In a sea of fire from incendiary bombs, my mother risked her life to protect me. Then, during the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake thirty years ago, my studio in Nada Ward, Kobe was completely destroyed, and the apartment I had near Shin-Kobe was no longer habitable. In a moment when I was at a complete loss, my mother’s words were, “As long as you’re alive, somehow you can go on!” These things are reflected in my work.

Also, because of my profession as a nurse, through confronting the lives and deaths of many patients, I think my work became an expression of my life force and soul. I was never very interested in pretty things. I felt there might be truth in things that are muddy and raw. When I saw those dark clouds, I knew: this is it.

- How do you position yourself and your work?

Fujiwara: I don’t pay much attention to that kind of thing. I work naturally, without being too conscious of such questions. This work is me, and I am that work.

Once, Shigenobu Kimura said to me, “Fujiwara-san’s work is not craft, nor dyeing just because it is dipped in ink; it is not a matter of categories like two-dimensional or three-dimensional. You are an artist of a unique world, piercing through in a distinctive spiral form.” If I had to position myself, I suppose I am a contemporary artist using ink and washi as my materials.

A Dialogue Between Washi and Ink

Artist's studio

- Please tell us specifically about your process.

Fujiwara: I fold the washi paper and soak it in ink, then leave it to dry as it is. It begins to dry from the outside. As this happens, the ink particles that have soaked into the paper move outward. When I unfold it, the particles have migrated to the areas that dried earlier, while the parts that dry last contain fewer particles. After drying, I return it to its original flat surface, which allows me to create expressions through variations in ink tone, and then I back it to complete the work.

- What do you value most in your practice?

Fujiwara: For materials, I use Japanese washi paper. I used Chinese gasen paper for many years, and at one time I also used thick Tosa kozo paper from Kochi Prefecture. But there are no longer successors to the papermaking craftspeople, so it is no longer available. Recently I especially like using bamboo-blended washi for ink painting from Tokushima Prefecture, known as Awa washi.

Paper has a front and a back. Normally, one paints on the front, but sometimes when the image breaks through from the front to the back, it feels more truly like me. More than the surface I thought I wanted to paint, it becomes, “This is me, this is my expression.” Even I am surprised by this, but there are several works in which I show the reverse side as the front. Through washi, I think the soul of Shiho Fujiwara may be piercing through and expressing itself. That, perhaps, is part of what makes art so interesting.

For ink, I use Nara ink and Chinese ink.

The Intentions Behind the Work and the Techniques That Bring Them to Life

Shiho Fujiwara, “Line 25-1”, 2025, 72.5 × 50.5 × 2.5 cm, Chinese ink on Japanese paper

- Please tell us about Line-25, the main visual of this exhibition.

Fujiwara: In terms of technique, I folded the paper, dipped it in ink, and let it dry. The radiating form happened naturally. When it had dried and was finished, I felt I wanted something like a single line of force running through it, so in the end I drew strongly down the center with a brush. I often add more by hand after the drying process. But when I feel it is good as it is in its natural state, I leave it that way.

- Please tell us about the Unfolding the Fold series.

Fujiwara: compose the image through the fold lines as I work. Rather than drawing patterns, I express them through folding. When the paper is unfolded and returned to a flat surface, the fold lines emerge as part of the composition. I fold the paper while imagining the unfolded form beforehand.

- What about your recent work Ten Ox Herding Pictures 25-1?

Fujiwara: One source is the image of dark clouds I once experienced, hanging down almost to the horizon. Another was something a temple priest in Kobe said to me: “Do you know the Ten Oxherding Pictures?”

Put simply, the Ten Oxherding Pictures are ten images explaining the ten stages of the Zen path to enlightenment: a child travels while saying he wants a fine ox, and by the time he actually attains it, he has already forgotten that desire. When I learned about them, the priest said, “It would be interesting if you expressed them in your own way.”

So I made this work. It represents the very last picture of the Ten Oxherding Pictures. I expressed it through the division of space by the ratio between the dark upper section and the grayish lower section, and through the tones of ink. It represents a state in which, after going all the way to the ultimate point, one does not withdraw into a temple but instead returns to the town and lives together with ordinary people. I expressed that in ink tones.

Although ink painting is typically defined by bleeding and diffusion, in this work I deliberately eliminate those effects, collaging washi papers of different ink tones to create clean, straight lines. I drew inspiration from the work of Tadaaki Kuwayama, who constructs his compositions by combining canvases

Close-up

Shiho Fujiwara describes her practice as natural and unforced. Yet behind this lies an unwavering belief that “truth may lie in what is muddy and raw,” along with many years of working with ink and washi. What has emerged from that process is her work. “Living through paper” may be the phrase that best captures this attitude.

Explore the profound world of Shiho Fujiwara in her upcoming exhibition at Whitestone Ginza New Gallery, “Living Through Paper,” opening on April 10th. Discover the evolution of her artistic practice through a diverse range of works, including her latest experiments and sculptures.

Living Through Paper: The Trajectory of Shiho Fujiwara's "Line"