Artwork Description

Title: Santa Anna Bruna 3
Artist: Keiko Moriuchi
Date: n.d.
Medium: Mixed media
Dimensions: 13.2 x 9.6 in (33.5 x 24.5 cm)

1. Artwork Identification
Santa Anna Bruna 3 is an exuberant mixed media work by Keiko Moriuchi, featuring a bold central tulip motif rendered in high-relief against a richly adorned background. Vivid hues of red, green, turquoise, and fuchsia interplay with reflective foil and thick gold impasto, producing a surface that is simultaneously ornamental and sculptural. The work is framed by a vibrant grid-like border, suggestive of stained glass or ceremonial tapestry, reinforcing the sacred character of the composition.

2. Artistic Style and Influences
This work exemplifies Moriuchi’s mature style, which merges the material sensibilities of Gutai art with a deeply personal sense of symbolism and ornament. The piece reflects her engagement with gestural abstraction, yet diverges from conventional flatness through the use of dimensional surfaces, luminous color, and gold embellishment. Her palette and structure suggest an intuitive response to both Western decorative traditions and Eastern spiritual iconography, in a language that recalls but does not imitate Art Brut, Outsider Art, and aspects of Byzantine devotional aesthetics.

3. Historical Context
Keiko Moriuchi’s practice is shaped by her dual immersion in postwar Japanese avant-garde circles and the American art scene of the 1960s. After her formative years at Osaka Shoin Women’s University and her meeting with Gutai founder Jiro Yoshihara in 1962, she was advised to study not in Paris, but in New York—then the global epicenter of artistic innovation. Her eventual integration into Gutai in 1968 coincided with a period of experimentation and cross-cultural influence, and her work from this era reflects a synthesis of Japanese conceptualism and Western materialism, as seen in her early installations and sculptural paintings.

4. Provenance
Provenance documentation can be provided upon contact.

5. Condition and Conservation
The artwork is in very good condition. All materials remain stable and securely affixed, with no visible cracking, fading, or loss to the surface. The rich impasto and metallic components are intact and vibrant. No signs of restoration or conservation intervention are observed.

6. Artistic Significance
Santa Anna Bruna 3 exemplifies Moriuchi’s enduring contribution to post-Gutai practice and transnational abstraction. Through its radiant textures and spiritual allusions, the work invites both aesthetic delight and introspective contemplation. It serves as a luminous testament to the artist’s singular ability to navigate and fuse diverse artistic lineages—Japanese avant-garde, American minimalism, and sacred iconography—into a compelling, tactile vision. Pieces from this body of work remain rare and are increasingly recognized for their historical and collector value.