KAREN SHIOZAWA

Once Upon a Time ‒ Tales Of Moon ‒ Whitestone Gallery 22 November 2025–4 January 2026 Beijing

Press Release

Whitestone Gallery Beijing is pleased to present “Once Upon a Time ‒ Tales of Moon – ”, Karen Shiozawa’s second solo exhibition in Beijing space on view from November 22, 2025, to January 4, 2026. This exhibition features Shiozawa’s latest series of works that question the viewer’s inner world, inviting them to relive scenes where imagination and reality intertwine, woven together into a single narrative envisioned by the artist.

Born in 1998, Karen Shiozawa is a Japanese emerging contemporary artist whose early childhood in the Netherlands has had a profound influence on her artistic sensibility and perspective. Her paintings construct a poetic visual world through a layered sense of space and the subtle interplay of light and shadow. Seeking to capture the world beyond the realm of sight, she incorporates sensory elements such as sound and light to engage the full spectrum of perception and evoke deep emotional resonance. Motifs of European architecture — windmills, classical arches, and church spires — frequently appear throughout her compositions.

Employing a refined chiaroscuro technique, Shiozawa accentuates the contrast between light and darkness while harmonizing vivid colors across the canvas. Her creative process is both meticulous and deliberate: she tapping to blend and build up layers of color, carefully delineating the contours of imagination. Additionally, through techniques such as scratching the ground with a needle, stippling and tapping with the brush to render gentle light, Shiozawa builds intricate atmospheres that blur the boundary between imagination and tangible reality.

“What I value most in my exhibitions is immersion.

My work begins with painting, yet it extends into space, light, music, and sensation. Through the intersection of painting and space, I seek to generate multilayered images that expand the pictorial world into physical reality. I am drawn to themes of childhood memory, nostalgia, and primal landscapes striving to depict what cannot be seen.”

— Karen Shiozawa

As Shiozawa explains, this exhibition is an attempt “to connect human consciousness and perception, to capture the inner voices often overlooked in the physical world.”

In addition to new series of paintings, the exhibition features a site-specific immersive installation conceived and curated by the artist herself. Responding to the architectural character of the gallery, Shiozawa integrates video, lighting, and sound to create a multidimensional sensory experience that draws visitors into her imagined world.

Transforming the entire exhibition space into an immersive environment, the artist invites viewers to rediscover the intricate relationship between memory and life. Within this spatial narrative, the light emanating from her works converges with the viewers’ unspoken emotions and nostalgic memories, flowing together along an invisible trajectory. Through this exhibition — a poetic “journey across the galaxy” — visitors are encouraged to navigate their own inner constellations and find their guiding light within the interplay of illumination and emotion.