DIVERGENT
Atsuko Yoshimura
Ideet Sharon
Seiji Kuwabara
May 14 to 31, 2026
noon to 5 pm Tuesday to Saturday
West of Main Art Walk Hours:
Saturday, May 30th & Sunday, May 31st.
11 am to 5 pm
Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 16th from 2 to 4 pm.
DIVERGENT:
Contextual Definitions
General: Moving away from a common point or standard.
Psychology: Divergent thinking allows for generating creative solutions by exploring many possible directions.
Seiji Kuwabara
Bio
Seiji Kuwabara is a furniture designer and sculptor born and raised in Japan, now based in British Columbia. Entirely self-taught, he has developed a practice rooted in meticulous craftsmanship and a design language shaped by the quiet principles of Japanese minimalism and Zen — refined through years of working almost exclusively in wood.
Working with sustainable, high-quality timber, Seiji draws out the natural character of each material, letting grain, weight, and history guide the form. His pieces occupy the space between furniture and sculpture: functional objects that carry the quiet authority of fine art.
Seiji is co-founder of In Element Designs, a Vancouver-based studio he runs with his wife Himali. Together they create original, built-to-order pieces that live at the intersection of furniture, sculpture, and architecture — each one handcrafted to bring beauty, balance, and intention into the spaces people call home. Their work has found collectors across four continents, from London and Singapore to New York and Ireland.
Artist Statement
I was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, and I think it taught me early to see the world differently — to find my own logic, my own way through. That quality never left me. It shapes how I design.
My process begins the way a child draws: freely, without boundaries, following instinct before reason. I'm drawn to wood because it is honest in a way few materials are — it has grain, weight, history. When I work with it, I'm not imposing. I'm listening, drawing out what the material has always held inside.
The pieces I make are rooted in the Japanese design principles I grew up with remove what isn't needed, honour what remains. Simplicity is not an absence — it's a discipline. When something is stripped to its essential form, it becomes more itself. More present. My work lives in that space between furniture and sculpture, between function and fine art — objects made to be used but made with the same intention and care you would bring to any work of lasting beauty.
Design has been my calling since I was a child sketching shapes without logic or boundaries. I hope the work carries that spirit — and brings something quiet and enduring into the lives of the people who live with it.
Atsuko Yoshimura
Bio
Atsuko Yoshimura is a Vancouver-based ceramic artist working primarily with porcelain and stoneware. Born and raised in Japan, she moved to Canada in 1996.
She studied ceramics in both Japan and Canada, including Fine Arts studies at Langara College, and holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Her work reflects a balance between the refined sensibility of Japanese aesthetics and the diverse, contemporary influences of the West Coast.
She creates both functional ware and sculptural work, with a growing focus on abstract forms and installation. Her practice explores form, repetition, and subtle surface detail, leaving the porcelain unglazed to emphasize its natural detail and translucency.
Her work has been exhibited at galleries across Vancouver and is held in private collections.
Artist Statement
My work reflects cycles of transformation. Forms emerge, repeat, and slowly fade. Circular and spiral gestures suggest ripples in water and the flow of time, as well as the quiet cycle of beginning and ending.
I work primarily with wheel-thrown porcelain. My forms begin as simple, fluid movements. I leave the traces of my hands, including the throwing marks. Each line holds a record of gesture, memory, and time. At a certain point, I pause these movements and hold them in place.
Some works develop further through carving. The surface is shaped and refined, allowing a different kind of gesture to appear.
I am drawn to quiet, repeated actions. The work may appear minimal, but each form carries the accumulation of these gestures over time.
Working with porcelain, black clay, and black-stained wood, I explore the tension between permanence and impermanence. Light passing through porcelain creates subtle shifts in depth and shadow, so the work changes with its surroundings.
Ideet Sharon
Bio
Ideet Sharon is a Vancouver-based artist whose work explores themes of geometric entanglement, connection, and abstraction. After graduating from a fine arts high school, Ideet studied at the Vancouver Film School in 1997, followed by a career as a computer graphics artist and animator in the animation industry. Based in her East Vancouver studio, Ideet combines diverse mediums on canvas and wood to examine organic geometric forms and the spaces they inhabit, inviting reflection on the relationship between environment, perception, and self-expression.
Artist Statement
Through her art, Ideet explores geometric entanglement, connection, and abstraction, viewing the world as fragments that collaborate, balance, and integrate into a greater whole. The relationships between these geometries represent the complexities of our perception, where individual parts coexist within a unifying story. Her work reflects on individual and collective journeys, personal perception, and how we interact with the spaces within and around us.