Light and Shadow
April 23rd - May 3rd, 2026
273 Grand St, #4E, New York, NY 10002
Opening reception: April 23rd, 6 - 8 pm
(New York, NY — April 23) Van Der Plas Gallery presents Light and Shadow, an All Art+ group exhibition hosted at Cloudstreet, a premier design and marketing company. This marks the gallery’s first exhibition at the Cloudstreet studio.
Exploring the enduring interplay of illumination and shade, Light and Shadow brings together contemporary artists working across painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media. Each probes what is revealed and what remains hidden, inviting viewers into a dialogue shaped by vitality, secrecy, and story.
Jon (Yoshito Kikuzawa) spent about 30 years as a graphic designer before suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in 2022 that left him with right-side paralysis and aphasia. After encouragement from his wife, illustrator Koyuri Kikuzawa, he began drawing in 2025 using his left hand. His first series, NY Angels, features 104 small illustrations of the artist's cats with golden wings. These early works were crucial for Kikuzawa's introduction to the “joy of painting”. He has since focused his keen eye on the often-overlooked but essential components of everyday life, such as beds, traffic lights, and even trash cans. His work is characterized by warm, gentle lines. The subtlety of his compositions enhances their intent, displaying multiple angles of a single creature. This practice is complemented by the artist’s usage of a limited but articulate color palette.
Layered minimalism also finds representation in the work of Yasda, who, for this exhibition, will present a single painting, Wanderer, priced at just $1. The work features a woman in contemplative repose, surrounded by an ocean of blue. She herself is adored in similar hues and projects a settled warmth despite the seemingly somber gravity of her surroundings. In addition to its objective intrigue, this painting carries an unusual history. At the end of a past exhibition, the original piece was lost. After parting with it and rushing to prepare for the next show, Yasda created a replica to take its place. Then, unexpectedly, the original resurfaced. Now it exists as an artifact with a distinct narrative and has been reimagined as a form of performance art. The buyer doesn’t just own the piece—they are obligated to continue its story. Wherever they go, the painting must go too. Its journey is meant to unfold over time, documented and shared on social media, so the work can live up to its story and name.
Award-winning artist Toko Idetsuki is widely recognized across Japan for her refined work in pen, painting, watercolor, and sumi ink. For this exhibition, Idetsuki presents La Vie∞, an intricate and richly imagined composition that evokes a near-mythological, animalistic universe shaped by elevated natural forms and a fantastical sensibility reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. At the center stands a flamingo, poised and regal, crowned with a nearly translucent diadem. Its back becomes a stage for another world—inhabited by a frog, a clock, mushrooms, shells, winding roads to nowhere, and an abundance of lush flora and trees. Structural elements placed at the corners of the composition provide moments of visual pause, balancing the density of points and lines that compose the central imagery. Brimming with detail and narrative, the interplay between filled and negative space conjures a layered reality that feels both expansive and quietly wondrous.
Esoteric and personal realms permeate the exhibition, and Sachiko Koda's work is no exception. A color specialist, Koda centers her practice on her original Happy Color Mandala, employing a meticulous pointillist technique developed through a deeply meditative process. Her work reflects a sustained exploration of color, pattern, and perception, drawing inspiration from both natural forms and traditional Japanese design. In Miyabi, Koda brings together a rich array of materials—including acrylic, gold leaf, and silver leaf—to create a luminous, immersive structure. Gold is often associated with divine energy, vitality, and immortality, while silver is linked to lunar intuition, emotional balance, and purification. Together, they suggest a harmony between outward energy and inner emotional reflection. The composition gently draws the viewer inward, evoking a contemplative space that feels suspended beyond time.
The show's repertoire includes the sculptural presence of Sumiko Tabata. Prior to developing a practice that includes doll-making and wood carving, Tabata studied oil painting. Spanning decades of exhibitions and teaching, her pursuits, focused on sculptural practices including wood carving and chainsaw art, reflect a continued dialogue of exploration with her material-based creations. Constructed with camphor tree and detailed with acrylic, Hitomi displays the timeline of Tabata’s skill and stimulus. Standing a foot tall, the feminine figure’s hands are neatly folded -- carved into the central pillar of her corpus. Wrapped in natural tones and possessing a face of serenity and a dazed focus, the figure stands as if she were unearthed from the wood -- its inner spirit -- contemplating the space in which she now exists.
Light and Shadow launches the first collaboration between Van Der Plas Gallery and Cloudstreet, reflecting a shared commitment to innovation, community, and the evolving dialogue between art and environment.
Cloudstreet Studio is located at 273 Grand St, #4E, New York, NY 10002.
Artist bios:
Chasey Wang
Chasey Wang is a visual artist working primarily in painting and mixed media. Her practice explores emotion, memory, and psychological states through abstraction, material experimentation, and spatial composition. By layering color, texture, and form, she investigates how internal experiences can be translated into visual language. Influenced by both fine art traditions and contemporary design thinking, her work often blurs the boundary between intuitive expression and structured systems. Wang’s recent projects focus on transformation, restraint, and the persistence of memory, inviting viewers to engage with subtle emotional tensions and personal narratives embedded within abstract forms.
Elee Danny
Elee Danny is a Korean artist active across Korea, Europe, and the United States, and has participated in more than 50 exhibitions since 2024. Notable presentations include the Gustav Klimt Award (Austria, 2024); the Asia Contemporary Art Convention (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 2024); Focus Art Fair London (Saatchi Gallery, 2025); and Salon International d’Art Contemporain (Louvre Museum, Paris, 2025). He is also the author of numerous publications on art.
He graduated from the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University, completed the Communication program at Carnegie Mellon University, and later completed studies at Harvard University. His academic career includes serving as an adjunct professor at Hongik University, professor at the College of Fine Arts at Keimyung University, and honorary dean of the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the Korea University of Science and Technology. In 2016, he was awarded the Order of Industrial Service Merit by the Republic of Korea.
Elisabetta Nitoglia
Elisabetta Nitoglia’s work explores the tension between inner experience and the external world. She is drawn to moments of quiet transformation, where memory, emotion, and environment intersect. Through layered textures and deliberate mark-making, she builds spaces that feel both familiar and unsettled, inviting viewers to slow down and look inward.
She uses her materials intuitively, allowing process to guide meaning. Each piece becomes a conversation between control and chance, reflecting how identity is shaped by both intention and circumstance. Light, color, and form act as emotional cues, suggesting movement, absence, or resilience.
Rather than offering fixed narratives, she creates open-ended works that ask questions. She wants viewers to find themselves within the work, bringing their own stories to complete it. Her art is an invitation to pause, reflect, and reconnect with what is often left unspoken.
FUDESHI Shontaro 富永章子
FUDESHI Shontaro is an artist working in calligraphy, exploring visual expression through ink techniques such as gradation, dry brush, and ink bleeding. His work approaches calligraphy as a form of visual art, focusing on expressive possibilities within brush and ink. His background includes both artistic practice and professional experience related to craft and education.
Jon じょん
Jon is a Japanese artist born in Osaka in 1970, formerly working as a graphic designer for over 30 years. In 2022, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that resulted in right-side paralysis and aphasia. In April 2025, he began a new artistic journey, creating a series of works featuring “winged cats.” His work reflects both the precision of his design background and a perspective shaped by his personal experiences, gaining recognition in Japan and internationally.
Koichi Takazawa (pirogasu) 高澤広一
Koichi Takazawa (pirogasu) is a contemporary artist active in exhibition and festival contexts in Japan and internationally. He received an award at the Handa Grand Prix (1993) and has since participated as both host and artist in the Handa Grand Prix and Madaran Art Festival. His recent recognition includes selection and award distinctions in the Dynamic Contemporary Artist Exhibition (2023–2024) and selection for Gallery Max New York (2025).
Michael Staats
At present, Michael Staats focuses on creating atmospheres defined by heightened interactions of image and color, often working in a format that borders on surrealism. His practice is primarily rooted in oil painting on canvas, while also extending into collage on paper, wood panel, and canvas.
Miki Kawazu 河津美希
Miki Kawazu is a Japan-based spiritual healing artist and flower essence counselor with over 19 years of experience supporting more than 10,000 clients. Her paintings incorporate vibrational energy derived from flower essences she creates, with works that shift in appearance depending on light and viewing angle. Using symbolic imagery such as roses, her practice reflects themes of perception, inner experience, and emotional transformation. Alongside her visual work, she creates accompanying messages described as songs.
Meisui Hatano 波多の明翠
I am a contemporary calligrapher and a recipient of the prestigious Mainichi Award in Japan. In 2005, my signature character "Rakuchan" was born in an apartment in NYC, inspired by the city's energy. After a brief hiatus, I am returning to New York in 2026 to begin a new chapter in my creative work.
Rachael Delaney
Rachael Delaney is interested in the intersection of art, education, and ecology, particularly in how art can serve as an entry point for engaging with complex social, environmental, and cultural conversations. As a visual form of documentation, art allows complexity to be encountered rather than decoded. When issues are made tangible through artworks, they move beyond information toward lived understanding, opening space for empathy, reflection, and dialogue. Her work takes shape through visual narratives that engage these conditions.
Sachiko Koda 幸田さちこ
Sachiko Koda is a Japanese artist and color specialist whose work centers on her original “Happy Color Mandala.” Using a pointillist technique developed through a meditative process, her work reflects an interest in color, pattern, and perception. Drawing inspiration from natural forms and traditional Japanese design, she also teaches her method alongside her artistic practice.
Seiko Ishimatsu 石松誓子
Seiko Ishimatsu is an artist working primarily in photography, focusing on details such as wall textures, rust, light, and reflections. Her work developed from using photography as reference material for painting, evolving into a primary practice. She captures visual elements shaped by time and environment, presenting them as subjects of observation.
Sumiko Tabata 田畑住子
Born in Wakayama in 1946, Sumiko Tabata studied oil painting before developing a practice that includes doll-making and wood carving. Her work spans decades of exhibitions and teaching, with a later focus on sculptural practices including wood carving and chainsaw art. Her activities reflect continued exploration of material-based work and traditional craft techniques.
Takehisa Okade 岡出武久
Born in Hokkaido in 1982, Takehisa Okade is an artist selected for the 2025 New York Open Call Exhibition (Autumn/Winter). His work is presented through participation in international exhibition platforms.
Tomoss. 橋本智子
Tomoss. is a Japanese illustrator whose work spans magazine illustration, fashion, and theater-related publications. Her practice focuses on visual storytelling through illustration, developed through both editorial and exhibition contexts.
Toko Idetsuki
Toko Idetsuki is an artist whose work has been recognized through multiple exhibitions and awards in Japan. Her practice is rooted in ongoing participation in national exhibitions, reflecting continued engagement with painting and competitive exhibition platforms.
YASDA 安田圭伸
YASDA / $1 Wanderer.
Selection of works:
