This week we will celebrate a major milestone for artist Lucas Arruda: the opening of artist’s first solo exhibition in Japan at the Daitoku-ji Ōbain-in Temple in Kyoto. Located in the Kita ward of Kyoto, Daitoku-ji (大徳寺) is a Zen Buddhist temple, significant for its reverence and projection by warlords in the Sengoku-period.

The exhibition will present both new and existing paintings by Arruda, and particularly from his Deserto-Modelo series that focus on the landscape genre, using an approach that explores complex mental states and our experience of light and perception.

The temple was established in 1315 by Zen master Shūhō Myōchō. It flourished during the Muromachi period with the support of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the shogun who also built Kinkaku-ji (sometimes known as ‘the Golden Pavilion’). Daitoku-ji played a significant role in historical tea culture through its association with famous tea masters such as Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591), renowned during the Sengoku period, who developed the notion of the tea ceremony, intertwining his tea aesthetics with the Zen spirit of the temple.