(Above: Peril, created with Sumi ink, reflects artist Satoko Matouji’s interpretation — and deep concern for — the effects of climate change on Earth.)
Edited by Randi Bjornstad
Eugene artist Satoko Motouji is a Eugen artist who is showing her work at the member-owned Blackfish Gallery in Portland through Nov. 1, 2025.
Motouji’s abstract sumi ink paintings take their inspiration from her view of climate change and the imbalance that it causes in the natural world, resulting as it does in destruction of the environment from drought, wildfires, and overall meteorological shifts that are changing once pristine and untouched landscapes.
The show, titled Destruction/Rejuvenation/Harmony, explores the first two elements while still hoping for the ultimate survival of the third, recognizing that changes to the earth are inevitable but hopefully may lead to worldwide positive realizations and actions in the future.
The direction of Motouji’s work shifted five years ago, when her life changed dramatically along with most other people’s when the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020.
Back then, she told Eugene Scene, “For the first few months, I didn’t know what to do at all, even about going to the grocery store. In about April or May of 2020, I started doing some watercolors, but that wasn’t really working, and suddenly it all changed, and I began doing mostly black-and-white — with feelings of thunder, slipping, blowing.”
The pandemic probably wasn’t the only reason for the unease that led to her change in style, Motouji surmised, because 2020 was such a difficult year all the way around.
“The virus was a big part, but then in the summer came all of the wildfires and all that destruction,” she recalled. All that somber work gave way somewhat through the ensuing years with a series of exhibits at Eugene galleries — the Maude Kerns Art Center, White Lotus Gallery, and the Karin Clarke Gallery — as well as creation of a series of vibrantly colored, impressionistic watercolor paintings that she created for projection onto the stage of Eugene Ballet’s production of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt.
But the haunting reality of climate change and its effects on humans and the environment persists.
Motouji’s interest in art began in early childhood, when she favored pencil drawings, and once in college, she began taking drawing classes in addition to her regular academic work. That led to her own career as an artist as well as a long stint as a teacher in the Lane Community College Art Department, which lasted until 2016.
Her work in the Blackfish Gallery show is determined largely by her choice of traditional sumi ink that is based on soot, as well as two-dimensional works that include burnt paintings and accompanying photographs of nature.
Art Exhibit: Destruction/Rejuvenation/Harmony
When: Through Nov. 1, 2025
Where: Blackfish Gallery, 938 NW Everett St., Portland
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
Information: 503-224-2634 or online at blackfish.com
Fluidity No. 1, created with Sumi ink, reflects artist Satoko Matouji’s concern about the deleterious effects of climate change on the earth, as well as hope for enlightened changes to lessen its peril.
