Keiko Hara: Four Decades of Paintings and Prints

Keiko Hara offers a detailed exploration of the prolific artist's unwavering commitment to painting, and her unique form of Japanese woodblock printmaking. Rich with metaphorical imagery, Hara's visual universe encompasses references to water, fire, skies, and verdant lands, all the while investigating the poetics of space. Born during the Second World War in North Korea to Japanese parents, Hara moved to Japan in 1945 and was raised and educated there. As a young woman, she attended art school in Tokyo at the Oita prefecture. In 1971 she embarked on a lifelong endeavor seeking greater artistic freedom in the United States. Separated from her cultural surroundings, memory and longing became overarching themes for this deeply poetic artist. Hara's journey took her to Mississippi State University for Women, Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and ultimately to Walla Walla, Washington, where she taught at Whitman College for 21 years until she retired in 2006. She has shown at numerous one-person and invitational group exhibitions throughout the United States, and her work is part of permanent collections at the National Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Racine Art Museum, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.