Artwork Description

Title: Peach
Artist: Keiko Moriuchi
Date: n.d.
Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 13.4 x 13.4 in (34 x 34 cm)

1. Artwork Identification
Peach is a striking small-format mixed media painting by Keiko Moriuchi, composed of rich impasto swirls in red, green, gold, and white, layered over pearlescent and metallic vertical ridges. The composition is divided rhythmically into alternating columns—three elaborately encrusted vertical sections populated with rose-like motifs in dense impasto, separated by smoother, gold-laced striations. The surface glows with vitality, shimmering as it catches the light from different angles, offering a sensual feast of texture and hue.

2. Artistic Style and Influences
This exuberant and ornamental work reveals Moriuchi’s distinctive approach to the Gutai principle of material exploration. The swirling compositions evoke botanical imagery—buds, blossoms, or peaches—in a gestural celebration of fertility and ritual. Gold leaf, a material historically associated with East Asian sacred art, is reimagined here within a contemporary abstract framework. Moriuchi’s synthesis of vibrant, celebratory color with sculptural paint application speaks to a lineage that includes Gutai’s performative legacy, Pop Art’s boldness, and Eastern symbolic resonance.

3. Historical Context
Moriuchi became officially affiliated with the Gutai Art Association in 1968, but her connection with its founder Jiro Yoshihara and its radical material ethos began much earlier. Her relocation to New York in the mid-1960s placed her at the intersection of two global avant-gardes. While her early installations embraced minimalist repetition, her later works—such as Peach—embrace a kind of maximalist energy, laden with symbolism, sensuality, and complexity. The Title: Peach may allude to East Asian mythology, where peaches symbolize immortality, abundance, and divine favor.

4. Provenance
Provenance documentation can be provided upon request.

5. Condition and Conservation
The artwork is in very good condition. The impasto remains vibrant and stable, with no signs of flaking or discoloration. The canvas is taut and professionally maintained.

6. Artistic Significance
Peach represents a vivid fusion of personal symbolism and material exuberance. As a standout piece within Keiko Moriuchi’s mature body of work, it captures the artist’s deep commitment to both spiritual and sensual registers of art-making. This richly textured, radiant painting is an ideal acquisition for collectors of Japanese postwar art, Gutai material experimentation, or contemporary abstraction that bridges East and West with joyful defiance.