Keiko Moriuchi, Lu: The Never-Ending Thread I, 2025
Acrylic and 24k yellow gold leaf on canvas
33.3 x 24 x 3 cm
Condition: Very good
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Keiko Moriuchi (Japanese, b.1943) is an artistic force to be reckoned with. Not only was she the final member to join the Gutai Art Association, but she was also the only member to be invited to join by Jiro Yoshihara (Japanese, 1905-1972), the collective’s founder. The Gutai Art Association was a pioneering Japanese post-war avant-garde artist collective best known for its experimental art forms in postwar Japan, that set out to express themselves freely without being confined by traditional precedents.
Whilst studying at Osaka Shoin Women’s University in 1962, she encountered Yoshihara, who encouraged Moriuchi to move to New York instead of Paris. This choice proved pivotal to her artistic career. In New York, she deepened her connections with renowned 20th century artists such as Ad Reinhardt (who was her neighbour), Isamu Noguchi and Matsumi Kanemitsu, drawing inspiration from their artistic innovation and individuality. She continued to work with and exhibit with the Gutai Art Association until their disbandment in 1972.
Moriuchi continues to work today, creating paintings with stunning textures, underscored with deep spirituality. Spirituality radiates off Moriuchi’s canvases, as her compositions harken to sacred geometries and mythological symbols. Her works are almost akin to sculptural terrains, putting on layer after layer of Liquitex paint that accumulates on the canvas, which are then delicately gilded with gold. This signature use of gold leaf is not merely an aesthetic choice — as Moriuchi believes that gold has healing and purifying properties, and activates the divine energy points of the heart and mind. The heft of these surfaces embody the vigour with which Moriuchi uses to create these immensely tactile pieces, and even further, mirroring the intensity of artistic gestures of her Gutai peers. Moriuchi’s work stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of Gutai’s fearless experimentation infused with her own style, where each ornate surface becomes a living dialogue between material, spirit, and the boundless possibilities of artistic creation.
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In Lu, Moriuchi paints horizontal threads that extend along the canvas. These lines are imagined as threads stretching infinitely into the cosmos, reaching toward remote prime-number coordinates, indivisible and infinite, representing the pure building blocks of the universe.
The title’s 善 (zen) suggests both “Eternity” and “Zen” (禅) and giving the work a spiritual dimension without tying it to any one faith. The threads form a bridge between human life and the infinite, turning the act of painting into a meditation on the unseen order of the cosmos.
(Photographed in October 2025)