UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Eri Iwasaki, Dust Bunny - In a Small Corner of the World, 2025, Natural mineral pigment, platinum paint, gofun, akatsuchi on washi paper (kozo) mounted on wood panel, 51.3 x 63.8 in (130.3 x 162 cm)
MOTHER
MARINA BERIO, ERI IWASAKI, MINÉ OKUBO, YUKIKO HATA, ASAKO TABATA
February 12 – March 14, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 12, 6–8 PM
SEIZAN Gallery is pleased to present MOTHER, a group exhibition featuring works by Marina Berio, Yukiko Hata, Eri Iwasaki, Miné Okubo, and Asako Tabata. On view from February 12 through March 14, the exhibition brings together major work by artists who have been pursuing the enduring subject of motherhood—both directly and indirectly—through their distinct perspectives and medium of choice. Together, their works offer nuanced and refreshing interpretations of this historically resonant theme.
Marina Berio, Family Matter 5, 2008/2013, Gum bichromate print with blood, 10.2 x 10.2 in (25.5 x 25.2 cm)
Family Matter is a series by Marina Berio depicting her son and his father, produced using gum bichromate—a nineteenth-century photographic process—into which she incorporates unconventional materials as pigments. In the works presented in the show, Berio printed images of the two wrestling in an aggressive, physical manner using her own blood. The grainy, brownish-red images hover between documentation and reverie, revealing close-up fragments of intertwined limbs and bodies against plain backgrounds. Although the artist-mother is absent from the frame, she is insistently present, both through her bodily material embedded in the image and through her position behind the camera. Berio states that she is fascinated by both the playfulness and the genuine anger physically expressed between her son and his father. “As mother, maker, one point of the family triangle, I use my own blood to denote the fact that I am bound to these males and implicated in their routine, though their behaviors feel profoundly foreign to me. As photographer and observer, I have an invisible role in the scene being played out; I am present but beyond the frame.”
Yukiko Hata, The Virgin Mary's Cup, 2025, Oil on canvas, 44.1 x 63.8 in (112 x 162 cm)
Yukiko Hata offers sharply satirical commentary on society, history, and politics through eccentric portraits, landscapes, and still life imagery rendered in vivid color. In a series of oil paintings created for this group exhibition, Hata is at her most incisive in examining stereotypes of motherhood within Japanese society. A central work, Virgin Mary’s Cup, presents an unsettling allegory in which a teenage girl is depicted as a racehorse and her mother as the jockey. The daughter-horse collapses awkwardly as she turns her head toward the viewer with a distressed, glassy eye. Her saddlecloth bears the race name “ハコイリ (Hakoiri),” meaning “Sheltered Daughter.” In stark contrast, the mother-jockey remains in full racing posture, wielding an iPhone mounted on a stick and raised like a whip. In the background, a large monitor displays an infinite loop of their image, evoking a hall-of-mirrors effect that amplifies the sense of spectacle and exploitation. “This painting is dedicated to women who were forced into an idealized image of femininity and compelled to become ‘Virgin Marys,’ as well as to children who, from the moment of their birth, are exposed(through social media) and sacrificed as commodities for profit,” the artist states.
Eri Iwasaki, Mom, 2025, Natural mineral pigment, gold leaf, gofun on washi paper (kozo) mounted on wood panel 47.2 x 59.8 in (120 x 152 cm)
Nihonga painter Eri Iwasaki presents two newly created works, Dust Bunny and Mom. Using traditional materials such as mineral pigments, gold leaf, and platinum paint, Iwasaki masterfully renders celestial portraits of young figures. Living and working in Kyoto, she is continually immersed in premodern Buddhist sculpture and painted scrolls depicting Buddhist figures. This influence is evident in the tranquil, inward-looking expressions and the androgynous, ethereal presence of her subjects. Her figures may recall bosatsu (bodhisattvas), who in Japan are often understood as compassionate, maternal presences. Iwasaki also acknowledges a psychological influence stemming from her long-term work as a courtroom illustrator. Having closely witnessed the depths of human cruelty alongside the dignity and resilience of those who have been stripped of it, she brings a profound emotional depth to her paintings, offering a contemporary interpretation of the bosatsu figure.
Miné Okubo, Untitled (Girl with Flower), Mixed media on paper, 14.8 x 10.4 in (37.5 x 26.5 cm)
From the estate of Miné Okubo, three portraits of a child painted in the 1970s are presented here for the first time. Born in California in 1912, the Japanese American artist is best known as the author of Citizen 13666, a landmark illustrated memoir published in 1946 that chronicles her experience of incarceration during World War II. Widely read upon its release, the book remains a foundational record of Japanese American wartime history. After her release from the internment camp, Okubo settled in a small apartment in New York City, where she worked tirelessly—often in modest conditions—producing paintings and drawings until her death in 2001. The three portraits presented here reflect key characteristics of her later work: plump, softly modeled figures adorned with flowers, rendered with gentle contours and rich, luminous color. These paintings mark a striking evolution from her earlier portrait drawings of the 1940s, also on view in the exhibition, which are defined by bold charcoal outlines and a sharper graphic intensity. Together, the works reveal Okubo’s sustained commitment to the human figure and her enduring celebration of life.
Asako Tabata, Door, 2020, Oil on canvas, 63.8 x 51.3 x 1.2 in (162.1 x 130.3 x 3 cm)
Mother has been a key subject in the oeuvre of painter Asako Tabata. It was honed in her last solo exhibition in 2025, WAITING FOR BONE at SEIZAN Gallery, which reflected her contemplation and self-reflection on the death of her mother in the previous year. This group show features new works Tabata created with the subject of “mother,” in addition to the striking 2020 painting Door. The painting centers on a small figure that appears to be either a young child or an elderly person, sitting on a bed painted in red. Behind the bed, a closed door is rendered in rough brushstrokes. Tabata has commented that the painting was inspired by her mother, who was living in a care home at the time, had weak legs, and was unable to leave the room on her own. Based on her personal experience, Tabata creates an intimate emotional world that can be sympathized with by many viewers. Art critic John Yau sharply described her work “If, as Edvard Munch once wrote, the figure in his painting embodies an ‘infinite scream passing through nature,’ Tabata’s women convey its opposite—the infinite scream forever trapped within the body.”
Marina Berio (b. 1966, Boston, MA) was born to an Italian father and a Japanese American mother. She studied photography, drawing, sculpture, and art history before earning her MFA in Photography from Bard College. She has received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Pollock/Krasner Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has been an artist-in-residence at MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Millay Colony. Her work was recently featured in a major historical survey on materiality in photography at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and she has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Miranda (Paris), Galería Phuyu (Buenos Aires), Michael Steinberg Fine Art (New York), and the OFF Triennale (Hamburg). Her recent project, Ten Photography Lessons for a Dead President, is an artist’s book exploring her family history and the incarceration of her relatives—along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans—during World War II.
Yukiko Hata (b.1988, Miyagi, Japan) was born in Sendai City in Japan. After receiving her Master of Art in Tohoku University of Art and Design, she received a Holbein Scholarship and continued her practice of oil painting. Her works have been exhibited at the The Present Developments of the TERRADA ART AWARD 2015 Awardees, Yamagata Biennale 2018, The Shiogama Sugimura Jun Museum of Art in Miyagi, Japan, SEIZAN Gallery New York and Tokyo, among many others. Hata currently lives and works in Sendai City in Japan.
Eri Iwasaki (b. 1968, Hyogo, Japan) began studying Nihonga in high school and is a graduate of Kyoto Saga Junior College of Arts. Recognized as a leading figure among contemporary Nihonga artists, Iwasaki has exhibited widely, including at SEIZAN Gallery Tokyo, SEIZAN Gallery New York, Mitsukoshi in Tokyo, Sendai, and Osaka, Takashimaya Osaka, and KAHO Gallery in Kyoto, among many others. Her work is included in the Art Collection of Kyoto Prefecture as well as notable private collections in the United States and Japan. Iwasaki lives and works in Kyoto, Japan.
A Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) artist, Miné Okubo (b. 1912, Riverside, CA – d. 2001, New York, NY) worked prolifically as an illustrator and painter and became a prominent figure of Japanese modern artists such as Chiura Obata and Matsusaburo Hibi. Her oeuvre has been widely reappraised and newly recognized in recent years. A traveling group exhibition, Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo, curated Dr. ShiPu Wang is currently on view at the Monterey Museum of Art and is scheduled to travel to the Japanese American National Museum. Okubo’s works are held in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Center for Social Justice & Civil Liberties, among others.
Asako Tabata was born in 1972 in Kanagawa, Japan. After studying painting at Tama Art University, she became a mother and homemaker, continuing to make art while working at home. For many years, she kept her practice largely private, exhibiting only occasionally in small galleries in Tokyo. In 2022, Tabata held her first solo exhibition in the United States, Cutting a Loquat Tree, at SEIZAN Gallery New York. Her work is included in prominent private collections in the United States and Japan.