This exciting show featured large scale and dramatic works produced over the past 25 years by contemporary Japanese painter Minol Araki. This marked the first time that the Center exhibited works by a contemporary artist, but one of the things that makes Araki so compelling is his reworking and modernization of traditional themes, media and formats.

Regular visitors to the Lee Center are now familiar with Nanga—or painting done by "amateur" literati artists. These were men and women who, traditionally, produced art for art's sake, rather than for monetary gain. Araki is modern example of such an artist—he paints purely for the love of painting. Araki cites his artistic influences as artists and designers from around the globe, including such diverse sources as Nanga (literati) and Nihonga (modern Japanese style works), Chinese "thrown ink" style landscape painting, Russian painting, and even the work of Pablo Picasso, yet in his paintings, he synthesizes these influences into highly personalized, evocative imagery. In the work of Araki, East meets West, and the Old meets the New.

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