Painting Enlightenment

Painting Enlightenment

May 8, 2021 – March 27, 2022

Painting Enlightenment: Experiencing Wisdom and Compassion through Art and Science, features works by a Japanese scientist and artist Iwasaki Tsuneo (1917-2002). The paintings create a contemplative journey and meditations on the interconnectedness of the universe. Iwasaki collapses distinctions between image, text, and thought with imagery representative of both scientific phenomena and Buddhist principles. He forms the images by using characters from the sacred Buddhist text, the Heart Sutra.

Upon retiring from a career as a research biologist, Iwasaki expanded his own practice of copying sacred texts, called shyakyō – a form of devotion with a long history in Japan. In his unique process, instead of separating the verses written into vertical blocks, he reconfigures them into images such as DNA, lightning bolts, bubbles, atoms, and ants. He created this artistic practice to express the intricate relationship between science and Buddhism.

Organized by the Louisiana State University Museum of Art with guest curator, Dr. Paula Arai, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at LSU. Presented at the Morikami Museum and funded in part by the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.