Hisako
Kobayashi

b. 1948

“I want a process in my work which harmonizes the disorder of nature, our nature—the way music can embrace the impulses that both fuel and disrupt our lives. To make a whole from these parts: that is what I am after. It is in this way that my painting, though outwardly abstract, reflects my inner reality.”

Bio

Hisako Kobayashi is a Tokyo-born, New York-based abstract painter whose work reflects a deep synthesis of Japanese sensibility and American artistic training. Since earning her MFA from Pratt Institute in 1981, Kobayashi has exhibited internationally, creating paintings known for their emotional resonance and musicality. Art critic Donald Kuspit praised her for capturing the romantic ideal that art is best understood through feeling, comparing her nuanced use of color and gesture to the depth and subtlety of music. Living and working in Manhattan, she continues to explore abstraction as a means of evoking the soul’s inner vibrations.