Mitsu Ikemura is a Victoria-based mixed media artist. His richly-layered, semi-abstract ‘mindscapes’ integrate his background as an architect and urban designer with Asian-style brushwork, and he is also heavily influenced by Western-style classical music of the kind that he grew up hearing his mother play in Japan. He began his art practice with the intention of articulating the essence of the Canadian landscape of the Rocky Mountains and the prairies in contrast to his native landscapes of Japan, and since then has continued to use his inner visions to invoke a universal, primordial awareness of being.
Ikemura explains that his ‘mindscapes’ ‘reflect an ongoing journey, a quest’, and that his personal explorations have brought him ‘to an inner landscape which at the same time is universal and timeless. He later extended outward with an exploration of physical movement, as he studied modern dance, then flamenco in Jeres de la Frontera and Argentine tango in Buenos Aires. Continuing further outward and travelling the world, he has sketched his impressions and feelings into over forty travel diaries, and his next mission is to share these artworks with the public.
