Yuriko Lochan is a sensitive landscapist. She has adapted a traditional Japanese genre to suit her contemporary needs of expression. Her encounters with the overwhelming beauties of nature are absorbed, mulled over and then turned into sublime images.

The stylised rendering of natural scenes invests her painting with a meditative quality. Even the use of gold in her works, instead of signalling a kitschy excess, evokes a mood of grave dignity. She makes ingenious use of gold-bordered and subtly textured Japanese Shikishi paper to create her poetic landscapes.

Indian viewers familiar with Santiniketan artists would find stylistic resemblances in Yuriko’s works. Although far removed in time and space, the Japanese calligraphic brushwork that inspired the Santiniketan masters has also been a source of inspiration in Yuriko’s style.

The freely flowing brushwork in the calligraphic drawings shows a supple strength. Yuriko achieves intriguing results in her representations of Indian deities. She brings to their traditional iconography the liveliness and plasticity achieved through the controlled movement of the brush and the way she allows the ink to flow from its tip.

Spiritual concerns are primarily manifest in Yuriko’s works. But she uses the materiality of paper and her medium to good effect. Although her work in traditional in temperament, she adds a note of contemporaneity in the way she introduces subtle dissonances in forms.

Ella Datta