Untitled. (2025) acrylic on canvas, 190 x 360 cm. Image by KÖNIG GALERIE © Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE
CICA Vancouver is pleased to announce a major collaboration with the Deer Lake Artist in Residence Program, welcoming acclaimed Japanese artist Ayako Rokkaku to Metro Vancouver for a residency and solo exhibition in spring 2026. As part of this partnership, Rokkaku will participate in the Deer Lake Artist in Residence Program, followed by a solo exhibition at CICA Vancouver. The residency provides a meaningful platform for local and international artistic exchange, research, and public engagement.
As part of her residency, Rokkaku will present a public Open Studio on March 18, 2026, from 3:00 to 4:30 PM, offering audiences a rare opportunity to encounter her process at close range. Her solo exhibition, Trails of Life in the Air, will be on view at CICA Vancouver from April 10 to June 13, 2026, with an Opening Reception and Live Painting event on April 9, 2026.
Ayako Rokkaku (b. 1982, Chiba, Japan) lives and works between Berlin, Porto, and Tokyo. Known internationally for her instinctive and performative approach, Rokkaku paints directly with her bare hands, using her fingers to spread and shape acrylic paint across the canvas. This distinctive technique lends her work an immediate sense of movement, intimacy, and spontaneity, while underscoring the physical relationship between body, gesture, and image. Moving fluidly between abstraction and figuration, her vibrant paintings draw from kawaii culture, abstract expressionism, and the boundless imagination of childhood, often unfolding as fantastical worlds populated by drifting forms and imagined beings.
Created for her Vancouver exhibition, Trails of Life in the Air continues Rokkaku’s exploration of colour, motion, and the subtle presence of living forms. In this new body of work, vivid hues and drifting shapes move across the surface like air in quiet circulation. Layers of abstraction ripple and merge, within which tiny creatures and traces of life emerge and recede. They occupy a space between what can be seen and what can only be imagined: ancient yet immediate, delicate yet continually becoming.
Developed in dialogue with her time in Burnaby, this new series will also be shaped by Rokkaku’s engagement with the local community. As part of the project, she aims to create new works inspired by her experience in Metro Vancouver while learning from the cultural history and context of the region. In Rokkaku’s words, these paintings bring together “the air that comes from the land and the air that is freshly created.” The works evoke a world in continual transformation, where forms emerge, shift, and dissolve through touch, atmosphere, and motion. Together, they invite viewers into a space that feels alive, weightless, and perpetually in the process of becoming.
This project reflects CICA Vancouver’s ongoing commitment to fostering international dialogue and building meaningful connections among local and international artists, institutions, and audiences. By presenting this exhibition, CICA offers a rare opportunity to experience Rokkaku’s practice across multiple contexts, from the intimacy of the residency studio to the immediacy of live painting and the immersive space of a solo exhibition.
