Artwork Description

Title: Peach 8 of Kunlun Mountain
Artist: Keiko Moriuchi
Date: 2018
Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 35.8 x 28.6 in (91 x 72.7 cm)

1. Artwork Identification
Peach 8 of Kunlun Mountain is a luminous and richly ornamented mixed media work by Keiko Moriuchi, created in 2018. A lattice of honeycomb-textured gold forms the background upon which radiant floral bursts—rendered in shimmering pinks, blues, purples, and gilded leaf—are aligned in a central vertical axis and flanked by scattered circular motifs. These forms, which seem to hover above the surface, are bordered by vivid pink contouring and a golden outer frame inscribed with abstract gestural marks. The overall effect is regal, ceremonial, and cosmically charged.

2. Artistic Style and Influences
Moriuchi’s work embodies the Gutai legacy of bold material experimentation, combined with spiritual abstraction and symbolic patterning. In Peach 8 of Kunlun Mountain, she engages with the mythology of the Daoist paradise through a schema that recalls temple scrolls, tantric diagrams, or sacred mandalas. The peach, a recurring emblem in her oeuvre, is here transformed into explosive clusters of texture and color. Her lavish surface treatments echo both ritual objects and postmodern painting, situating the work between reverence and material celebration.

3. Historical Context
After studying under Jiro Yoshihara and later immersing herself in the American art world of the 1960s, Moriuchi developed a practice that bridges East and West. Her involvement with Gutai emphasized action and spontaneity, while her later practice evolved toward the meditative and symbolic. This 2018 painting reveals her mature style, in which decades of cross-cultural exploration coalesce into an expressive yet deeply structured visual language. The numbered works in the Peach of Kunlun Mountain series represent a personal mythology made manifest through matter.

4. Provenance
Provenance documentation can be provided upon contact.

5. Condition and Conservation
The artwork is in very good condition. The canvas is stable and professionally mounted, with no signs of deterioration or damage. The gilding, impasto, and pigment layers are vibrant and intact. No restoration has been necessary or applied.

6. Artistic Significance
Peach 8 of Kunlun Mountain stands as a ceremonial and contemplative work within Moriuchi’s celebrated peach series. The central vertical alignment suggests a spiritual axis or divine ascent, while the surrounding symbols echo celestial bodies or ritual sequences. With its synthesis of Gutai materiality and mythological symbolism, the work affirms Moriuchi’s role as a visionary painter—one who transforms abstraction into sacred terrain. For collectors, this piece offers both a sensorial experience and an invitation into a layered cultural and spiritual narrative.