Join internationally acclaimed artist Ayako Rokkaku for a rare artist-led workshop inspired by her distinctive finger-painting practice. This special session offers participants of all ages the unique opportunity to learn directly from the artist, experiencing her intuitive and expressive approach to painting firsthand.
Guided by Rokkaku, participants will explore colour, texture, movement, and emotion through a hands-on process using paint, brushes, fingers, and other creative tools. Emphasizing spontaneity, sensory discovery, and personal expression, the workshop invites participants to create freely and engage with art as a tactile, playful, and emotionally open experience.
Designed for all ages and no prior experience required, this workshop is a unique chance to connect with a globally celebrated artist in an intimate setting and to discover creativity through direct experimentation and joy.
Event Detail
Sunday, April 12, 2:00 – 4:00 PM
Location
CICA Vancouver
About the Artists
Ayako Rokkaku (b. 1982 in Chiba, Japan) lives and works between Berlin, Porto, and Tokyo. Her artistic process involves an instinctive and performative approach, as she uses her bare hands to apply acrylic paint, translating the motion of her body onto the canvas. True to her distinctive technique, she moulds figures with the tips of her fingers, whether on canvas, through glass, or in bronze.
Rokkaku’s visual language seamlessly shifts between elusive abstract formations and figurative elements, drawing inspiration from the kawaii culture (Japanese for cute) and capturing the boundless imagination of a child. Rokkaku is known for her colourful canvases populated by imaginary landscapes and fantastical characters. There is an ebullience, an undeniable charm, to her paintings, a lightness of being that comes into focus through the artist’s technique. The absence of any prior design or drawing for the realization of her works means that the process of bringing these paintings to life is a performative one. Indeed, Rokkaku stages live painting performances in contexts where her work will be exhibited, bringing the dialogue between the audience and artist as close to one another as the touch that animates her inspired practice. After nearly two decades of immersing her hands in acrylic and oil paint, Rokkaku expanded her artistic boundaries by challenging herself to create sculptures, using ceramics, bronze, and glass.
Rokkaku has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (2025), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2025); CCA Andratx, Mallorca (2024); The Long Museum, Shanghai, China (2023); the Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan (2020); Museum Jan van der Togt, Amstelveen, Netherlands (2019); Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia (2012); and Kunsthal, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2011). In 2015, she exhibited at the Swatch Art Pavilion during the 56th Venice Biennale. Her works can be found in the collections of Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Slovakia; Voorlinden Museum, Netherlands; Gunma Museum of Art, Japan; Sehwa Museum of Art / Sehwa Art and Culture Foundation, South Korea; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Karuizawa, Japan, among others.