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WELCOME TO THE GALLERY
Paintings
This collection of work represents the paintings I feel proudest of in my 5-year artist journey. Each has a special meaning and story. Please enjoy these images, and click on them to read their full story.
Fun fact: they are arranged in chronological order, so you'll gain a visual and intellectual understanding of my whole painting journey by taking them all in!
Third Eye of the Tiger
I consider "Third Eye of the Tiger" to be my first “real painting”. It was March of 2020 - the pandemic had just hit - and my former band was getting ready to release our first single. I was tasked with making the cover art. I had known I was supposed to do this for several months, but I doggedly avoided it as long as I could because procrastination seemed like a solid defense against fear of failure.
Until my bandmate/roommate Taj said, “Hey, the single is coming out next Friday. So… you have a week to make this painting.”
A week???
Oh, SHIT. I leapt into action. Bought a big square canvas. Sketched out a big tiger face with a third eye and added some tree branches, why not? At this point in my artist journey, I had very little painting knowledge - the only technique I was vaguely aware of was that of my favorite artist Amanda Sage, whom I knew approached her artwork by building up layers of glazes and white underneath them, so I clumsily tried to copy this, going off of a few Instagram process photos she had posted.
I entered a vortex of extreme artistic focus, painting for hours into the night after I finished my day job. How perfect that quarantine had just started and so for the first time, there was nothing else to distract me from my art. I had some freakout “oh-shit-what-did-I-just-do” moments, but for the most part, the piece just flowed out of me. And 50 hours and one week later, it was finished.
Just in time for our single “Third Eye of the Tiger”’s release into the world. Listening to the song at our zoom release event as we featured the painting on screen, I felt dazed. How did I make that? How did that even happen?
How does art ever come into being? It’s a mysterious thing. Although since that first painting, I’ve had many more transcendent art experiences, I’ll forever treasure this one, especially because it was done in collaboration with my dear friends with such sacred intention behind it. It expresses a vision that when we see how much potential we all have for beauty and joy and creativity, we will awaken and set ourselves and the Earth free.
Until my bandmate/roommate Taj said, “Hey, the single is coming out next Friday. So… you have a week to make this painting.”
A week???
Oh, SHIT. I leapt into action. Bought a big square canvas. Sketched out a big tiger face with a third eye and added some tree branches, why not? At this point in my artist journey, I had very little painting knowledge - the only technique I was vaguely aware of was that of my favorite artist Amanda Sage, whom I knew approached her artwork by building up layers of glazes and white underneath them, so I clumsily tried to copy this, going off of a few Instagram process photos she had posted.
I entered a vortex of extreme artistic focus, painting for hours into the night after I finished my day job. How perfect that quarantine had just started and so for the first time, there was nothing else to distract me from my art. I had some freakout “oh-shit-what-did-I-just-do” moments, but for the most part, the piece just flowed out of me. And 50 hours and one week later, it was finished.
Just in time for our single “Third Eye of the Tiger”’s release into the world. Listening to the song at our zoom release event as we featured the painting on screen, I felt dazed. How did I make that? How did that even happen?
How does art ever come into being? It’s a mysterious thing. Although since that first painting, I’ve had many more transcendent art experiences, I’ll forever treasure this one, especially because it was done in collaboration with my dear friends with such sacred intention behind it. It expresses a vision that when we see how much potential we all have for beauty and joy and creativity, we will awaken and set ourselves and the Earth free.
The War is Over (Love's Already Won)
I painted this in late 2021 for Mystic Tiger's second single release. Still such a newbie to painting at this point, I struggled a lot to execute the complex vision we had of life bursting from the heart center of the Earth to break down the war machine.
Although there's a lot I would do differently now with it, I think this piece still conveys the song's message that by acting from love we will not only end our own suffering, but we will also dissolve the social systems that keep us oppressed. The large is a reflection of the small.
The war is over,
Love’s already won
I feel it in my body
I feel it in my heart
The age of love is upon us
The war is over,
Love’s already won
The leaves of hate have crumbled
And fall’n to the ground
Revealing what is under
Connection abounds
The veil of separation
Is pulled from our eyes
We are one planet, one people,
One life
The war is over,
Love’s already won
And as I look around me
With joy my heart sings
We dance together through the conscious cosmic fabric
That holds all things
The war is over,
Love’s already won
Love’s already won
Love’s already won
Although there's a lot I would do differently now with it, I think this piece still conveys the song's message that by acting from love we will not only end our own suffering, but we will also dissolve the social systems that keep us oppressed. The large is a reflection of the small.
The war is over,
Love’s already won
I feel it in my body
I feel it in my heart
The age of love is upon us
The war is over,
Love’s already won
The leaves of hate have crumbled
And fall’n to the ground
Revealing what is under
Connection abounds
The veil of separation
Is pulled from our eyes
We are one planet, one people,
One life
The war is over,
Love’s already won
And as I look around me
With joy my heart sings
We dance together through the conscious cosmic fabric
That holds all things
The war is over,
Love’s already won
Love’s already won
Love’s already won
Structure & Flow
I used to resist structure, because all my life, I had been stuck in ones I hated - especially the adolescent classroom box and the adult office box. They made me feel flat and disempowered and robototic.
As I started to reject these structures in my late twenties (and they me - I got fired from 3 different nonprofits!), I began to remember who I was before them: an artist, which was so clear to my 3 year old self who was always singing and drawing and storytelling - creating beauty, and imagining beyond “what is” into “what could be”.
And as I started to do this through painting, I discovered a different kind of structure: one that is precise but not rigid; that reflects natural, divine, cosmic order; and that supports, rather than hinders, creativity and flow. This piece is to-date the most I’ve embraced artistic structure, through disciplined measurement (math!). The resulting effect, I hope, feels expansive and freeing.
I also see this piece as an example of how we can all create our own beautiful structures that support our growth and liberation. We can shape them however we want to. They needn’t all be rectangular ;)
As I started to reject these structures in my late twenties (and they me - I got fired from 3 different nonprofits!), I began to remember who I was before them: an artist, which was so clear to my 3 year old self who was always singing and drawing and storytelling - creating beauty, and imagining beyond “what is” into “what could be”.
And as I started to do this through painting, I discovered a different kind of structure: one that is precise but not rigid; that reflects natural, divine, cosmic order; and that supports, rather than hinders, creativity and flow. This piece is to-date the most I’ve embraced artistic structure, through disciplined measurement (math!). The resulting effect, I hope, feels expansive and freeing.
I also see this piece as an example of how we can all create our own beautiful structures that support our growth and liberation. We can shape them however we want to. They needn’t all be rectangular ;)
I Remember
"I Remember" was the first portrait I'd ever attempted, and it's a self-portrait I painted in June of 2022.
I remember my true nature
As a bright light
And a warrior woman
I remember my infinite power
To create beauty
And to love boundlessly
I remember why I’m here
To share my gifts
And grow beloved community
I remember my true nature
As a bright light
And a warrior woman
I remember my infinite power
To create beauty
And to love boundlessly
I remember why I’m here
To share my gifts
And grow beloved community
Ancestors
I painted this piece as a tribute to my ancestors and my Japanese and Japanese American culture. The vision came during a powerful meditation in an artivism workshop, where I felt my grandparents (who died when I was little) watching over me. The background of the piece is based on a watercolor painting my great grandfather did of our family’s homeland in Japan, and inside the bubble is the WWII JA concentration camps, where my dad was imprisoned for 3 years.
Painting this piece was an incredible experience, not only because I felt deeply connected to my
grandparents for the first time since I was little, but also because this was the first piece that integrates my heritage and culture and family into my art. It's the most meaningful work I've done so far, and continues to give me so much life as I sit in front of it every day (with the photo it was based on) to request support and wisdom from my inner child, my higher self, and my spirit guides.
Painting this piece was an incredible experience, not only because I felt deeply connected to my
grandparents for the first time since I was little, but also because this was the first piece that integrates my heritage and culture and family into my art. It's the most meaningful work I've done so far, and continues to give me so much life as I sit in front of it every day (with the photo it was based on) to request support and wisdom from my inner child, my higher self, and my spirit guides.
Light Tree
Story coming soon!
Infinite Possibilities
I’m so drawn to symmetrical compositions with a central focal point, and I indulged that desire in this painting. I created this piece in the last few days of a week-long painting marathon to ready me for my first art market, and feel like the freedom and ease of the strokes, loose yet precise, reflects how much of a flow I was in during this time of intensive practice.
I was soo happy to sell this piece to my family’s good friend Priscilla at my former band’s concert in April 2023 - she is a dentist and put up the piece at her office, so every time I get my teeth cleaned I can visit my painting! Priscilla later texted me and said that it gives her a feeling of infinite possibilities whenever she looks at it, so that’s what I named it.
I was soo happy to sell this piece to my family’s good friend Priscilla at my former band’s concert in April 2023 - she is a dentist and put up the piece at her office, so every time I get my teeth cleaned I can visit my painting! Priscilla later texted me and said that it gives her a feeling of infinite possibilities whenever she looks at it, so that’s what I named it.
Divine Align
“Divine Align” started as my first ever live painting at the Center for Yoga in Larchmont, Los Angeles - the oldest yoga studio in California where I am a practicing member. I decided to create it as an ode to the teachers and staff of CFY, who share yoga with the community as a creative, dynamic, and sacred art in a time when the popularization of yoga in the West often results in a practice stripped of its spiritual and cultural roots.
A few weeks after starting the piece, I submitted it to my painting teacher Amanda Sage for a 1-1 consultation over Zoom. Through digital edits on Procreate, she showed me a bunch of ideas on how I could improve and expand on the piece, like correcting the anatomy of the figure, adding chakra centers, creating more energy lines radiating from the horizon, and adding cherry blossom flowers to the tree branches. She told me that to level up my artistry, I could work on painting crisper lines and spending more time on each piece. Invigorated by all the new possibilities she showed me, I jumped back in.
Through cycles of white underpainting, color glazes, and dark reinforcement, I slowly refined the painting. Quite a few times I found myself wondering why I had drawn so many energy lines - it felt pretty cumbersome - but remembered Amanda’s challenge to me to spend more time on my art, so I pushed through. It ended up taking me 50 hours to complete - I think the devotion and attention to detail really comes through in this piece.
Ultimately, with this painting, I wanted to create a visual representation of the powerful state of being one can experience in yoga and in life, when rooted solidly on Earth — feeling that magic vertical column connecting one’s energy centers — and attuned with the universe above. The original painting is still looking for its true home, so if you’re interested in adopting it, please email me at akemi.artivist@gmail.com.
A few weeks after starting the piece, I submitted it to my painting teacher Amanda Sage for a 1-1 consultation over Zoom. Through digital edits on Procreate, she showed me a bunch of ideas on how I could improve and expand on the piece, like correcting the anatomy of the figure, adding chakra centers, creating more energy lines radiating from the horizon, and adding cherry blossom flowers to the tree branches. She told me that to level up my artistry, I could work on painting crisper lines and spending more time on each piece. Invigorated by all the new possibilities she showed me, I jumped back in.
Through cycles of white underpainting, color glazes, and dark reinforcement, I slowly refined the painting. Quite a few times I found myself wondering why I had drawn so many energy lines - it felt pretty cumbersome - but remembered Amanda’s challenge to me to spend more time on my art, so I pushed through. It ended up taking me 50 hours to complete - I think the devotion and attention to detail really comes through in this piece.
Ultimately, with this painting, I wanted to create a visual representation of the powerful state of being one can experience in yoga and in life, when rooted solidly on Earth — feeling that magic vertical column connecting one’s energy centers — and attuned with the universe above. The original painting is still looking for its true home, so if you’re interested in adopting it, please email me at akemi.artivist@gmail.com.
Emergence
Story coming soon!
The Beam
I painted “The Beam” after I got fired from my third nonprofit and decided to pursue the path of being a full-time artist. Suddenly free to do whatever I wanted all day, every day, I started to feel doubt weighing heavily on my chest in the form of a dark Box. The Box, to me, represents the artificial, rectangular order and structure of society that moves us away from our organic nature and towards “the machine”. Away from the spontaneity and creativity of the wild, and towards the standardization and scripting of bureaucracy.
I realized how afraid I was of structure, because all my life, I had only been stuck in other people’s: the box of the classroom, the box of the nonprofit office. Those structures had forced me into ways of talking, of acting, of dressing even, that made me feel small and robotic and so unlike myself.
But as I meditated on the open-ended stretches of time now in front of me and my struggle to fill them, the voice of my higher self said, structure can help you.
I knew it was true, because my art was proving that to me. Sketching out a structural foundation for my paintings, making it precise and measured and intentional while taking inspiration from the sacred geometry and mathematics of the universe, actually helped me focus and create more freely on top of it, colors and new lines and shapes emerging organically, the perfect union of structure and flow.
As I realized that I could in fact structure my life any way I wanted to, and that I knew how to create the structure I wanted, I cried - grief for all the years of being trapped, and gratitude for now being free.
As I cried, I felt the Box heavy on my chest dissolve, cracking and being blown open by the light of Life.
I took this concept to my first in-person art seminar in March of 2023 - the Mechanics of Nature with Mark Henson and Amanda Sage. Drawing a 3D box getting blown open by life was a pretty difficult thing to depict, and both teachers helped me a ton with it. By the end of the workshop, I had “finished” the piece, but I still wasn’t satisfied with it, and I didn’t know why.
It wasn’t until months and months had passed, and I went to my first Burning Man and my second in-person seminar with Amanda that I returned to the piece. Fully charged by the energy of Life from my new experiences, I realized that’s what the painting needed: more of ~that~ energy. I started painting dots emanating from the beams of light. Then explosive electric bolts reminiscent of those I had painted in my self-portrait. Then, struck by inspiration, I covered both my hands in white-yellow paint and loosely dabbed around the Box with my fingers.
There. Now, it was done.
The Beam. If you’re ever feeling hopelessly trapped in a Box, call upon the Beam: the wisdom of nature’s power, of your nature’s power. Focus your attention on what lights you up. Dissolve the structures that don’t serve you… and build your own, from the ground up.
I realized how afraid I was of structure, because all my life, I had only been stuck in other people’s: the box of the classroom, the box of the nonprofit office. Those structures had forced me into ways of talking, of acting, of dressing even, that made me feel small and robotic and so unlike myself.
But as I meditated on the open-ended stretches of time now in front of me and my struggle to fill them, the voice of my higher self said, structure can help you.
I knew it was true, because my art was proving that to me. Sketching out a structural foundation for my paintings, making it precise and measured and intentional while taking inspiration from the sacred geometry and mathematics of the universe, actually helped me focus and create more freely on top of it, colors and new lines and shapes emerging organically, the perfect union of structure and flow.
As I realized that I could in fact structure my life any way I wanted to, and that I knew how to create the structure I wanted, I cried - grief for all the years of being trapped, and gratitude for now being free.
As I cried, I felt the Box heavy on my chest dissolve, cracking and being blown open by the light of Life.
I took this concept to my first in-person art seminar in March of 2023 - the Mechanics of Nature with Mark Henson and Amanda Sage. Drawing a 3D box getting blown open by life was a pretty difficult thing to depict, and both teachers helped me a ton with it. By the end of the workshop, I had “finished” the piece, but I still wasn’t satisfied with it, and I didn’t know why.
It wasn’t until months and months had passed, and I went to my first Burning Man and my second in-person seminar with Amanda that I returned to the piece. Fully charged by the energy of Life from my new experiences, I realized that’s what the painting needed: more of ~that~ energy. I started painting dots emanating from the beams of light. Then explosive electric bolts reminiscent of those I had painted in my self-portrait. Then, struck by inspiration, I covered both my hands in white-yellow paint and loosely dabbed around the Box with my fingers.
There. Now, it was done.
The Beam. If you’re ever feeling hopelessly trapped in a Box, call upon the Beam: the wisdom of nature’s power, of your nature’s power. Focus your attention on what lights you up. Dissolve the structures that don’t serve you… and build your own, from the ground up.
Song
Note: the full story of “Song” is captured in my blog post “My Artist Quest in 2023: Expectations vs Reality” (link below).
It is a self-portrait, started and completed at Mixtek Mystics, the weeklong painting retreat at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in upstate New York.
It’s a story of deeply seeing myself in a way I have never before.
I hope this piece inspires you to find and celebrate your own heart’s song <3
It is a self-portrait, started and completed at Mixtek Mystics, the weeklong painting retreat at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in upstate New York.
It’s a story of deeply seeing myself in a way I have never before.
I hope this piece inspires you to find and celebrate your own heart’s song <3
The Portal
Story coming soon!
Gaza
Every time I sat down to write this, I found myself doing anything I could to distract myself from the task. Scrolling on my phone instead, eating something even though I wasn’t hungry. I felt a familiar numbness. And then I saw the post that a 25-year old named Aaron Bushnell just lit himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in DC. I closed my eyes, and started to feel a dull pain in my chest. It hurt. I breathed. It grew more intense. Until, to my relief, I started to cry. My heart finally opening again. Welcoming in the grief for the thousands killed senselessly, the millions suffering in this insane conflict.
What are we to do, those of us so far away, in many senses, from Palestine and Israel? What is the unique response each of us should offer to so much violence and destruction?
When I look away from the suffering - from the graphic photos and videos on social media and devastating news reports - I achieve a state of numbness. I disconnect myself from the pain and go about my daily life as normal. But then life takes on a slightly hazy quality. I can’t feel as much happiness, as much empathy, and my senses feel dulled. And under all of that is my constricted, tense chest.
A few months ago, I was invited to live-paint at a warehouse party in downtown LA. I bought a big square canvas and set it up before the party, staring at the blankness. What image would feel right to create, in front of dozens of strangers?
I pulled up a photo of a bombed-out refugee camp in Northern Gaza, which had just been hit by Israeli airstrikes, and started to sketch the shattered buildings. They were unfamiliar to me - the missing walls, the exposed wires, the tilted pillars. I had to look very closely in order to accurately render them. As I looked, I felt anger flood my body. How thoughtless, this mass destruction was. How stupid. I felt so puny and helpless in comparison to all that power. I felt despair.
But as I kept drawing, for the first time ever engaging with this conflict, I also felt…peace. The kind of peace that comes when you’re in alignment with your purpose. Flow-state peace. I channeled the pain onto the canvas in the form of loose and fast and big brush strokes. And then small, careful ones.
As I painted at the party, a girl came up to me and looked in silence at my canvas. She gave me a hug. I cried a little. We became friends after that.
On the canvas, eventually a plant emerged from the center of the rubble, its roots growing deep below the fragments and dust, reaching untouched soil deep in the Earth. And then a sun began to rise behind the buildings, casting brilliant beams of light into the sky.
This is what being a visionary artist means to me: seeing and portraying both the reality of collective suffering and a vision for collective healing. Holding both simultaneously in one’s heart, and sharing that experience.
It took me almost three months to create this piece. I did it slowly, intuitively, moving at the pace of good art - deliberately counter to the pace of the war machine. Along the way, I listened to podcast discussions both with Palestinians and with Israelis, which expanded my empathy and ability to hold multiple perspectives and experiences as truth.
I hope this painting invites you into deep sight, and deep love.
What are we to do, those of us so far away, in many senses, from Palestine and Israel? What is the unique response each of us should offer to so much violence and destruction?
When I look away from the suffering - from the graphic photos and videos on social media and devastating news reports - I achieve a state of numbness. I disconnect myself from the pain and go about my daily life as normal. But then life takes on a slightly hazy quality. I can’t feel as much happiness, as much empathy, and my senses feel dulled. And under all of that is my constricted, tense chest.
A few months ago, I was invited to live-paint at a warehouse party in downtown LA. I bought a big square canvas and set it up before the party, staring at the blankness. What image would feel right to create, in front of dozens of strangers?
I pulled up a photo of a bombed-out refugee camp in Northern Gaza, which had just been hit by Israeli airstrikes, and started to sketch the shattered buildings. They were unfamiliar to me - the missing walls, the exposed wires, the tilted pillars. I had to look very closely in order to accurately render them. As I looked, I felt anger flood my body. How thoughtless, this mass destruction was. How stupid. I felt so puny and helpless in comparison to all that power. I felt despair.
But as I kept drawing, for the first time ever engaging with this conflict, I also felt…peace. The kind of peace that comes when you’re in alignment with your purpose. Flow-state peace. I channeled the pain onto the canvas in the form of loose and fast and big brush strokes. And then small, careful ones.
As I painted at the party, a girl came up to me and looked in silence at my canvas. She gave me a hug. I cried a little. We became friends after that.
On the canvas, eventually a plant emerged from the center of the rubble, its roots growing deep below the fragments and dust, reaching untouched soil deep in the Earth. And then a sun began to rise behind the buildings, casting brilliant beams of light into the sky.
This is what being a visionary artist means to me: seeing and portraying both the reality of collective suffering and a vision for collective healing. Holding both simultaneously in one’s heart, and sharing that experience.
It took me almost three months to create this piece. I did it slowly, intuitively, moving at the pace of good art - deliberately counter to the pace of the war machine. Along the way, I listened to podcast discussions both with Palestinians and with Israelis, which expanded my empathy and ability to hold multiple perspectives and experiences as truth.
I hope this painting invites you into deep sight, and deep love.
Playa Magic
Last year, I finally got to go to Burning Man after nearly a decade of dreaming about it. For those who may not know, Burning Man is a temporary utopian city in the Nevadan desert built by 80,000 people. Not a light task: it requires months of visioning camp layouts, organizing survival supplies, and hauling massive structures from all over the world to Black Rock City. It is a gift economy: no money gets exchanged; everything is freely given without expectation of receiving in return.
I was blown away by the care and reverence shown in this undertaking. People poured so much love into their offerings, from tea lounges to smoothie & sauna parlors to giant art cars decorated like iceburgs with a secret air conditioned room. Out on the playa, everywhere you look - in every direction as far as you can see - is beauty: something your eyes have never seen before, or even dreamed was possible. It's as if a group of the most creative, fun, and kind human beings went to an alien planet and started a new civilization and you got to go visit for a whole week.
I learned a lot of things at Burning Man: how to ride a bike through a dust storm (and actually how to ride a bike period haha), how to run a pop-up night market in the middle of the desert, how to pee into a funnel, how to completely break down and grieve my lost dreams, how to lead people in improvisational singing while dancing at a club, how to pivot plans when a huge storm strikes the playa and traps everyone in place for days.
Burning Man showed me humanity’s potential to be creative and generous. It showed me a greater sense of aliveness than I’ve ever known: raw and wild, and free from the constraints of society to discover myself in all my loud, messy, infinite expressions.
May “Playa Magic” serve as one of these infinite expressions of beauty alchemized by the Burn to make the “default world” a more connected, joyful and creative place to be ✨
I was blown away by the care and reverence shown in this undertaking. People poured so much love into their offerings, from tea lounges to smoothie & sauna parlors to giant art cars decorated like iceburgs with a secret air conditioned room. Out on the playa, everywhere you look - in every direction as far as you can see - is beauty: something your eyes have never seen before, or even dreamed was possible. It's as if a group of the most creative, fun, and kind human beings went to an alien planet and started a new civilization and you got to go visit for a whole week.
I learned a lot of things at Burning Man: how to ride a bike through a dust storm (and actually how to ride a bike period haha), how to run a pop-up night market in the middle of the desert, how to pee into a funnel, how to completely break down and grieve my lost dreams, how to lead people in improvisational singing while dancing at a club, how to pivot plans when a huge storm strikes the playa and traps everyone in place for days.
Burning Man showed me humanity’s potential to be creative and generous. It showed me a greater sense of aliveness than I’ve ever known: raw and wild, and free from the constraints of society to discover myself in all my loud, messy, infinite expressions.
May “Playa Magic” serve as one of these infinite expressions of beauty alchemized by the Burn to make the “default world” a more connected, joyful and creative place to be ✨
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