Kaori Maeyama
“As an urban landscape painter in New Orleans, my focus is to paint the city’s backside through a Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, an appreciation of impermanence and imperfection. In describing the streetscapes and the Mississippi River batture scenes in thin, muted colors of oil paint, my work explores the beauty within the banal and broken, and the uncertainty through obscured vision and passage of time. Extensive subtractive method and unconventional mark making tools like printmaking brayers and window cleaning squeegees blur the line between what is seen, and what is not seen but felt. Like in music, I’m most interested in the visceral aspect of painted images, especially in subdued mood and atmosphere.” - Maeyama
Kaori Maeyama is a Japanese urban landscape painter based in New Orleans. LeMieux Galleries and Staple Goods in New Orleans regularly host her solo exhibitions, and O’Kane Gallery at the University of Houston-Downtown held a solo exhibition in 2023. Her work has also been shown in group exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She is a recipient of residencies and grants from Joan Mitchell Center, Vermont Studio Center, and National Performance Network, and her work has appeared in periodicals such as Louisiana Life Magazine, Gambit Weekly, and Southern Cultures. She is a member of Staple Goods, an artist-run gallery and collective in New Orleans, and teaches at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.
