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  • Home
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    • About Us
    • Board and Staff
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    • Follow Us on Social Media!
    • Join Our Email List
    • Resources
    • Testimonies/PR
  • Donate
  • How to Help
    • Become a Friend of the GVJCI
    • Donate Your Car!
    • Shop on Amazon
    • Volunteer
    • Purchase a 2021 Calendar Ad
  • Events/Programs/Classes
    • GVJCI >
      • Upcoming Events >
        • Adulting Workshop Series
        • AMAZAKE Workshop | 甘酒ワークショップ
        • Chair Shiatsu Workshops
        • GVJCI Scholarship
        • Haiku & Senryu Workshops
        • Kodomo No Hi
        • Manzanar Immersive
        • 害虫/害獣ペストコントロール相談セミナー
        • Restaurant Fundraiser
        • Seniors >
          • TNK Online Classes
          • Online Smartphone Class
          • Food Distribution >
            • Greeting Card Program
          • Online Resources
          • Tomo Cafe | 友カフェ
          • Bento Program
        • TANOSHII Fun Camp >
          • Camper Registration
          • Counselor Registration
          • Testimonials
          • Camp Supporters
          • Activities
          • FAQ
        • Tomodachi Online Baking Workshops
        • Virtual Matsuri >
          • Art Gallery
          • Entertainment
          • Food
          • Martial Arts
          • Scholarship Recipients
        • 2021 Online Art Show
      • Past Events >
        • The Bridge: GVJCI Heritage Center >
          • Book Club
        • Day Of Remembrance >
          • DOR 2021 >
            • CSUDH Japanese American Digitization Project
            • Densho Campu Podcast
            • Lane Ryo Hirabayashi Tribute
            • South Bay JACL Oral Histories Collection
            • Tanka Poetry
        • KonMari Method Workshops | こんまり®︎メソッドワークショップ
        • Oshogatsu
        • Oysters, Bites & Biiru
        • 2020 Online Art Show >
          • Artist Discussion & Performances
          • Artists A-H
          • Artists I-L
          • Artists M-S
          • Artists T-Z
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        • Meito Calligraphy
        • Mel's Ukulele Picking
        • Taiko
      • Health and Wellness >
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        • Meditation & More Class
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      • Service >
        • Evening Optimist Club of Gardena
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        • Sansei Baseball League
        • South Bay F.O.R Junior Sports Association
        • South Bay Youth Basketball
      • Youth >
        • Resources
        • Boy Scout Troop 683
        • Boy Scout Troop 719
  • Rentals
  • Blog
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Picture

Chakrabarti, Lisa

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About the Artist:
Lisa Chakrabarti was born in Manhattan, New York and grew up on Long Island. She began drawing at age 2 and sold her first artwork – pen and ink drawings at an arts and crafts fair – at age 14. She attended the State University of New York at Fredonia where she studied art and foreign languages and worked in Germany for over a year before moving to Los Angeles, California where she landed a job as a gofer in a foreign exchange trading room.  Lisa quickly advanced in her new career to become the youngest VP of Foreign Exchange at Chase Manhattan (Now JPM) at that time.  However, in 1988 Chase decided to close the trading desk in Los Angeles, and although Lisa was offered a job at any international Chase branch of her choosing, she and her husband, Gautam, decided to remain in Los Angeles where they have a large, extended family.  

After leaving Chase, Lisa changed careers and decided to ‘follow her art”, working in a variety of media: oils, acrylics, pastels, watercolors, graphite and colored pencils.  Focusing on a style she calls ‘romantic naturalism” – impressionism based largely on subjects in the natural world – her works found their way into galleries in Los Angeles, Florida, Colorado and New York.
In 1995 Lisa was drawn to sumi-e and Chinese ink paintings after being introduced to both techniques through Asian friends.  She later took up Chinese calligraphy and spent five years studying with Chinese master Zhu Cheng-jun prior to his return to China.

Lisa collaborates with Aikido practitioner/writer/photographer Beth Shibata, having illustrated and published two chapbooks on the relationship between sumi-e and Aikido and Iiado.  Lisa also illustrated the charming children’s book, “Billy the Bullfrog Finds a New Home” written by Shibata.

A cancer survivor, Lisa is associated with University of Southern California School of Medicine, where she was treated, and has contributed her artwork in many forms; including licensing her artwork for cards, and is part of the permanent Art collection at the Jennifer Diamond Research Library at USC/Norris Cancer Center.  She also was a featured artist in a documentary about the healing power of art produced by USC School of Cinematic Arts. More recently several of Lisa’s pieces were exhibited in a group show with 5 Japanese artists at Chozenji Temple, Shinjuku, Tokyo. 

Today Lisa lives and paints in her Los Angeles studio in the Koreatown neighborhood.  She maintains an internet presence at www.clouddragonart.com

Artist Contact Information:
lisatatsu@gmail.com
Picture
Neighborhood Cat, 2020
Sumi and watercolor on washi
11 
× 11 inches
About the Art:
"I go for a walk every day, COVID or not. Met the cat while on a walk."
Picture
English Rose, 2020
Sumi and watercolor on washi
8.25 
× 10.75 inches
About the Art:
"At the outset of the COVID-19 lockdown, I decided I would try to learn something new and/or paint every day. This is one such painting."
Picture
Red Hydrangea, 2020
Black Fabriano paper, watercolor
8 
× 8 inches
About the Art:
"Experimental piece that worked."
Picture
Ponder, 2020
Xuen paper, sumi and watercolor
16 
× 12 inches
About the Art:
"Inspired by a little bird nestled in a pine tree where I live."

Mercedes Guzman

Picture
On Snake River, 2020
Oil on canvas

Picture
Palos Verdes Coast, 2020
Oil on canvas
Picture
Lake Como, 2020
Oil on canvas

Havey, Lily

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Prayers for Peace (triptych), Wakayama/Hiroshima, Amache, Buddhist Prayer, 2020
​Origami paper
21 
× 21 inches
About the Art: 
My three panels of tsuru are three prayers for peace.  Each one has one tsuru with writing, either in Japanese or English, focusing on a specific topic.  The blue/green one has part of a Buddhist prayer which I found in one of my mother’s prayer books.  The purple/pink one is dedicated to Wakayam and Hiroshima, my father’s and my mother’s home towns.  This one also relates to the bombing of Hiroshima and a prayer that this will never happen again.  The red/orange one refers to Amache, the internment camp in Colorado where I spent four years imprisoned  behind barbed wire.

Hirasaki, Parrish

Picture
The Holiday Baker, 2020
​Watercolor on paper
14 
× 11 inches
Picture
Up, Up, and Away, 2020
​Watercolor on paper
10 
× 14 inches

Come and visit!

GVJCI's Mission and Vision

Our mission is to create a space to engage, share, and embrace the Nikkei experience and culture.

The GVJCI envisions a vibrant network and a welcoming space for all persons interested in Japanese heritage and culture where history and tradition are honored, people are inspired to create action and change, and cultural pride and respect for all humanity are promoted.




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Contact Us

 1964 W. 162nd St., Gardena, CA, 90247  |     (310) 324-6611    |      info@jci-gardena.org
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