Silver / gold background
Red background
Neutral colors background
Vivid colors background
Nature
Mu, Detachment from the World
Nudes
Calligraphies
Biography
Lumi Mizutani is a painter and lithographer born in Nagoya in Japan. She lives and works in Paris.
In Japan, Lumi has practiced the classical Japanese dance as seen in the Kabuki. In the 70s, Lumi moved to Paris and started to study body expression at the School of Mime with Etienne Decroux (one of Marcel Marceau’s teachers).
She later realized that painting is her real passion and she worked on lithography during 10 years. It is through the training with Japanese and Chinese masters that she got interested in and finally mastered the techniques of wash drawing and India ink.
Mesmerized by these techniques, she works on the alchemy between different elements she uses: paper, ink and water. Through the magic play of the materials, Lumi invites the viewer to enter the world of her artworks full of emotion. The artist wants the eye to follow the stroke. Lumi juggles with the codes by using traditional techniques, on the one hand, and permanently reinventing with her own techniques, on the other. She sometimes draws with an elastic dipped in the India ink. This technique gives more movement to her calligraphy paintings. Lumi Mizutani is inspired by the traditional Japanese landscapes. Her preparatory work consists in taking a large number of photos of the landscapes and then producing sketches after the photos.
“Mesmerized by the play between ink and water, by the conversation between black and white, I allow myself to be carried away, according to their whims, through this substance which floats, penetrates and then devours the paper. The contrasts of light ravish the eye, blown away by the magnetic power of zen aestheticism. The temptation to be led by this unknown force yields its pace to a fervent desire to conquer and better the material, thus the painter again becoming master of his creation.” – Lumi Mizutani
CV
Education
- 2012-2016: Training in Japanese painting with Mr Shigemasa Kawai (Japan)
- 2006-2010: Training in India ink painting with Mr Zou Tao in Nagoya (Japan)
- 1995-1998: Training in Lithography with J. Larrieu
- 1994-1995: Ecole Boulle (technical drawing) France
- 1974-1975: School Etienne Decroux (body expression) France
- 1972: Graduate from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Exhibitions
- 2024: “Dans les halliers de lumières”, group show, WITHoutART Gallery, Strasbourg (France)
- 2022: “Natures partagées”, Exhibition Parc de Belleville, Paris (France)
- 2022: “Natures partagées”, Exhibition Parc Georges Brassens, Paris (France)
- 2022: Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville, Paris (France)
- 2022: Exhibition “écriture(s)” at the WITHoutART Gallery, Newiller-lès-Saverne (France)
- 2022: Exhibition “écriture(s)” at the Pop-Up Gallery, Fondation Fernet Branca (France)
- 2021 : “ Natures partagées”, Buttes Chaumont, Paris (France)
- 2021: Exhibition “Arbres et prés fleuris” at WITHoutART gallery, Strasbourg (France)
- 2020 : Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville, Paris (France)
- 2019 : “Point de repères” by L’ours et le singe, Paris (France)
- 2019 : Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville, Paris (France)
- 2018 : Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville, Paris (France)
- 2018 : Group exhibition, at Académie Internationale de Peinture à l’Encre, Sanari (France)
- 2017: ART 012 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, Shangai (China)
- 2017: Group show, Without Art Gallery, Beijing (China)
- 2017 : Group show, at Gallery No.55 Art Space, Pekin (China)
- 2017 : Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville, Paris (France)
- 2017 : Ink Asia 2017, No.55 Art Space, Hong Kong (China)
- 2016: Group show, Without Art Gallery, Strasbourg (France)
- 2016: Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville / Group exhibition at the Impression Gallery (France)
- 2016 : “Arbres”, exhibition, Furishan Gallery, Beijing (China)
- 2016 : Group show, l’Espace Lhomond, Paris (France)
- 2016: Participation in book publishing of “A la manières des haïku” by Michel Raby
- 2015: Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville / Group exhibition at the Impression Gallery (France)
- 2014: Group show, Impression Gallery, Paris (France)
- 2014: Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville / Group exhibition at the Impression Gallery
- 2012: Six pieces of calligraphy sold to the Written Art Foundation, Francfort (Germany)
- 2011: Leizorovici Gallery, “Autour du Papier (About Paper)”, Vézelay/ Sinitude Gallery “Place au Nouvel An (Square at New Year)”, Paris (France)
- 2010: Group exhibition “Unchain My Art” at AAB Gallery, Paris (France)
- 2009: Participation in Open Day of the Artists’ Workshops of Belleville (Paris)
- 2009: Exhibition at Au Pont Rouge Gallery, Paris (France)
- 2008: Creation of a lithography artwork “Diaphane” for Daniel Leizorovici
- 2008: Group exhibition “Lignes Sensibles” (Sensible Lines) at AAB Gallery, Paris (France)
- 2006-2007: Exhibition at ARTE Café Gallery, Paris
- 2005: Group exhibition at the association L’ours et le singe, Paris (France)
- 2004: Exhibition at Impressions Gallery, Paris (France)
- 2000: Group exhibition as part of 13e art, Paris (France)
- 1996: Exhibition at the International Biennale of engraving of Sapporo (Japan)
Articles
Calligraphy and contemporary art: Lumi Mizutani (2/3)
Three of the gallery's artists derive their pictorial and/or philosophical resources from calligraphy. In this series of 3 articles we have asked...
Introducing Lumi Mizutani
Artist Lumi Mizutani draws the resources of her artistic expression from the japanese pictorial tradition. Her ink drawings and her paintings with...
