Mariko Murase My art is a visualization of my soul. I believe souls carry recorded information that we’ve inherited from our ancestors. In other words, souls are data aggregation from our long personal history and that make us who we are. Since, the visual image of my soul is made by many scars, bruises, wrinkles and stains, I scratch, erase, paste materials, add varieties of brush strokes, scrape paints with knives and needles, drop some ink and splash some water on canvas to create the unique texture that resembles my soul. Art saved my life in so many ways and to express my gratitude, I shall paint forever as I keep exploring dimensions of my deeper self. Like a child trying to catch a beautiful butterfly and get lost in woods. I travel into my inner landscape searching for that butterfly. After graduating from the Vantan Art Institute in Tokyo and earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Academy of Arts, I participated in numerous art exhibitions in the U.S.A., Japan, Saudi Arabia, Italy and Mexico.