Her career as an artist began in Alberta.

Yuriko’s aesthetic approach captures the timelessness and serenity in nature. She strives to honour the qualities of simplification, decorativeness, and serenity in her work, and is interested in drawing and capturing the various expectations and cycles of life. Her primary work is done on location, in watercolour and in pencil sketch.

The artist’s aesthetic approach exquisitely captures nature’s timeless serenity.  This process allows her to express nature’s spontaneous and sometimes fragile existence.

According to David Kung in The Contemporary Artist in Japan, “The qualities of simplification, decorativeness and serenity are the most salient forces influencing Japanese art throughout its history.”  There is no mistaking that these qualities abound in Yuriko’s body of work.  For Yuriko nothing replaces the sense of wholeness nature provides – the smell, sound and tranquility.

“I want to capture the timeless serenity, the power and endurance of rugged mountains, the delicacy of a flower, or the essence of the human figure.”

“I try to capture the energy of matter in my brush stroke.”

Born in Hokkaido, Japan, the artist moved to USA in the early 1960s after completing a BSc in Pharmacology, and then to Canada in the mid-1960s. Her career as an artist began in Alberta.

Yuriko Igarashi Kitamura is best known in artistic circles as the originator of dye-painting on rice paper. She taught the technique through the University of Alberta, Faculty of Extension over a period of fourteen (14) years and through various workshops across Alberta. 

The artist began taking art courses at the U of A Faculty of Extension, under Mr. Harry Savage. His introduction of Emile Nolde’s watercolour led Yuriko to experiment with water color on rice paper. After much trial and error, she developed her own unique technique (dye-painting on rice paper) which became her specialty.

The mixed media paintings are created by “wet on wet” watercolour technique using dyes and/or pigments on rice paper.  Since rice paper is porous, wax lines are applied as resist, in order to contain the dyes and pigments in their designated areas. With some of the works, wax is applied on the whole rice paper in order to protect it from damage by moisture in the air.