Born in Kanagawa, Japan, in 1998, Karen Shiozawa spent part of her childhood in the Netherlands and received her Master of Fine Arts from Tokyo Zokei University. In 2017, she was awarded the Special Excellence Award at the “Five University Art Exchange Exhibition 2017” at the Musashino Art University. In 2018, she was awarded the Best Formative Art Prize at the Asia Creative Art Exhibition held at The National Art Center, Tokyo. In 2020, her work was collected by the Deji Art Museum in China, and in 2022, she received the Award of Excellence at the 48th Art Festival Tokyo-ten Exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Her works have been exhibited in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, and Greece.

Working primarily through painting, Shiozawa explores how light, memory, and personal experience shape the ways we perceive and experience the world. Her formative years in the Netherlands, surrounded by diffuse light, reflections on water, and expansive horizons, profoundly influenced her sense of distance, memory, and time, and continue to inform the foundations of her practice.

Rather than depicting physical landscapes, Shiozawa seeks to create landscapes transformed through memory. Through contrasts of light and shadow and layered surfaces of color, she attempts to preserve the atmosphere and temporal resonance of lived experience within the painted image.

In recent years, she has expanded these painterly concerns into moving image and spatial compositions.

“The truly real world. It may be a memory of a world that once might have existed, or it may be a vision of a future yet unseen. Those who encounter my works can recognize the countless possible worlds, and, while feeling longing and nostalgia for the dazzling and immeasurable expanse glimpsed through the gaps of those worlds, they can open many doors of imagination. I hope to create works that act as bridges between people’s consciousness and perception, while capturing the inner voices that often go unnoticed in the real world.”

― Karen Shiozawa

Could you tell us about your background and what inspired you to begin your career as an artist?

From an early age, I loved expressing what I felt and imagined through drawing and making things.

In addition to being exposed to various forms of art while living in the Netherlands as a child, the landscapes I encountered there—the diffused light, reflections on the water, and the endlessly flat horizon—have remained deeply with me. I feel that these childhood experiences continue to inform my interest in light, distance, and memory in my work today.

When I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, I had my first opportunity to work with oil paint, and from that time on, I became increasingly interested in the medium. I feel that the various environments and experiences I have encountered throughout my life have shaped my artistic expression today.

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?

Why do certain landscapes remain in our minds? And when we look at the landscape before us through those memories, why does the way we see the world change? I create my work by reflecting on the relationship between the visible landscape and the inner landscape, using light and childhood memories as points of departure.

How do you maintain your inspiration and motivation when creating new work?

My work draws inspiration from many different sources, including my own childhood memories, landscapes that remain in someone’s heart, phenomena of light, and mythology.

Underlying these sources is my interest in nostalgia, including feelings of longing and yearning. Why are we moved by certain landscapes, light, or sounds, and why do we carry them with us in our memories for so long? Continuing to reflect on these questions is what drives me to create new work.

Are there any particular materials or media you especially enjoy working with? Why?

I primarily create paintings using oil paint on board.

I use a technique of my own development. I first build up a colorful layer on the surface and then lightly cover it with oil paint. I then scratch into the surface with a needle, gradually bringing the colors underneath back to the surface. The process is somewhat similar to the crayon scratch technique I played with as a child.

While working, I feel as though I am searching for light within darkness. I also use this method because I want to create my paintings with the immediacy of making a rough drawing, rather than carefully rendering every detail in advance.

In addition, when presenting my work in a solo exhibition, I consider the entire exhibition space as part of the work, directing the lighting to suit the atmosphere of the exhibition and creating video and sound works myself. What I value most in an exhibition is the sense of immersion that allows viewers to quietly enter the world of the work. While painting is the foundation of my practice, I expand the expression into space, light, and sound, and I am interested in how the world of a painting can extend into physical space. Through these experiences, I strive to express emotions that cannot be seen.

What challenges or difficulties have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?

I have not experienced many major difficulties in the process of making the work itself. However, I am always conscious of how sincerely I can listen to and engage with my own inner voice while creating.

Since I began exhibiting internationally, I have also encountered various challenges, such as installing exhibitions in unfamiliar environments and communicating across differences in language and culture. In those situations, rather than simply trying to communicate my own ideas, I make an effort to first understand the perspectives and backgrounds of the people I am working with. I feel that placing myself in different environments is itself an opportunity to broaden my perspective.

Could you tell us about the projects you are currently working on and your future plans?

I am currently working toward a solo exhibition in Hong Kong at the end of the year. Since this will be my first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, I hope to create an exhibition that allows people to become familiar with my work and artistic practice.

Going forward, I would like to hold exhibitions in various countries and, by presenting my work in different cultural and environmental contexts, incorporate new perspectives and encounters into my practice.

Text and photo courtesy of Karen Shiozawa

Website: www.karenshiozawa.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenshiozawa/