Birgit Wick in Kyoto
Where Inner and Outer Landscapes Meet
Birgit Wick is an award-winning designer and painter based in Sausalito, California. Trained in graphic design and expressive arts in Europe and the U.S., she has received artist residencies and grants, exhibited across the American West, and has work in private collections in the U.S. and Europe.
Blending Eastern and Western aesthetics, Birgit explores the inner landscape of thoughts and emotions through intuitive brush-and-ink paintings, expressive strokes, organic forms and layered textures.
I first met Birgit Wick in Nara in the spring of 2026, on a bright day when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. She gave me a set of postcards featuring her work, and that brief encounter stayed with me.
It was Birgit’s first visit to Kyoto. During her five-week artist residency, she spent her days walking, observing, and creating. Later, I was fortunate enough to see the works she had created and exhibited during her stay.
One piece in particular stayed with me. Over thirty days, she added a new section each day, allowing the passing of time and her changing states of mind to become part of the artwork itself.
Before she begins painting, she often spends a little time sitting quietly, allowing herself to settle before making the first mark.
What interested me most was the way she looked at Kyoto. While walking through the city, she noticed not only buildings and details, but also wondered about the people and lives behind them.
So I wanted to ask: what did Kyoto reveal to her, and what did those five weeks leave behind in her work and inner life?
This conversation begins there.
What motivated you to pursue an art residency in Kyoto? What were your expectations before arriving, and how does the actual reality of the city compare to what you had imagined?
I have had a longstanding passion for Japanese aesthetics and Japanese craftsmanship. As an artist, brush and ink have been a focal point since the 1990s, but I have had a particularly love affair with Sumi ink over the past ten years. Many of the brushes I use are from Japan, so is the paper. It was time to finally seek an opportunity to be in Japan as an artist, immerse myself in the culture and paint.
The artist residency at Yamaguchi Shoten was perfect, because I stayed in this historic house where some of the Mingei artist worked before.
My expectations were rather open and flexible, I was excited to go to Kyoto and have a place to paint. Intuitively, I felt, that this journey would be very fruitful and transformational on a personal as well as on an artistic level. Truth is, my time in Kyoto was exactly that. The city seemed to talk to me and present its history and hidden layers over and over again on my daily walks and random excursions.
Meanderings without goal and destination were key to all my miraculous discoveries. I sought out the more quiet neighborhoods away from the center like Sakyo in the Northeast. Kyoto for me has a lot of fragrance and mystery in the early mornings and evenings outside from the regular comings and goings.
To your senses, which specific pocket of Kyoto holds the most potent energy for you, and what occurs within your internal field when you enter it? What formless ingredients does Kyoto ultimately offer to your consciousness?
Sakyo-ku as a neighborhood was my favorite pocket with the Shirakawa Canal, the temples and quiet streets with all the unexpected and creative places. Particularly Shisen-do, one of the few Soto Zen temples and garden in Kyoto, touched me deeply. I get shivers just imagining the garden in my mind’s eye.
When I went through the gate the first time, my heart beat faster, and I had a sense of belonging and knowing the site. I sat for a very long time on the viewing platform and enjoyed the karesansui or dry garden. Time evaporated, identity vanished, my body seemed to dissolve, and I was filled with a sense of fluid consciousness and liquid knowing. It is hard to express with words. I returned over and over to that garden, sat in different places and made several ink sketches. Of course, I visited many other temples and gardens, but no other place had this effect on me.
Kyoto as a whole radiates a quiet mystery and an ongoing invitation to pause, look, observe and contemplate. It speaks strongly to my quiet nature and desire to see beyond appearance, beyond thought, beyond beliefs – even beyond the heart. Kyoto beckons me to open my eyes and rest in stillness but also to accept what I see, hear, taste and question.
Was there a specific scene, moment, or experience during your stay that has stayed deep within you and feels entirely unforgettable?
Scene #1
One afternoon I went to Shisen-do while it was drenched in fog and rain.
For hours I sat on the viewing platform, just listening to the rain and the sound of the shishiodoshi. The many shades of green – usually vibrant in full sunlight – were now muted by the fog but brilliant at the same time. The sounds of wind, leaves and birds serenaded my wandering thoughts and feelings.
It was like being in a cocoon of fog and leaves, greens and grays, past and present. I will never forget that afternoon.
Scene #2
Three weeks into the artist residency at Yamaguchi Shoten in Kyoto, it was already dark outside, I finally felt comfortable working in one of the historic rooms Munakata’s bedroom.
I covered the precious hardwood floors, laid out large paper and prepared brushes and ink. Then I sat for a long time connecting with the history, scent and energy of this room. Somehow, I could feel Munakata’s presence. Soft, yellow light came through the Shoji screen windows. I closed my eyes and waited for an impulse to arise.
There it was.
I picked up my big, long brush and started moving the brush on the paper. I followed the brush. It was a dance for several hours with black sumi ink, light and dark green ink. I didn’t have to think or pause, just continue to let the brush guide me.
The finished artwork of 6 x 7 feet was an homage to the moss in Kyoto. I will never forget that night and the creation of that painting.
You conducted a wonderful exhibition during the artist residency in Kyoto. When someone looked at your finished ink paintings, what kind of shift or resonance did you seek to trigger within their consciousness?
I wanted to create a close-up experience for the viewer. One where you could touch the paper and look through my actual sketchbooks. The exhibit was a very intimate encounter with unframed, floating artwork in historic rooms. A dialogue between past and present in muted light sheltered from the outside where beauty and stillness meet.
I hoped that the viewer will be drawn to one of the paintings and pause. That he/she will look and connect with form, color, texture or movement. That moment of connection is crucial and can be the door to a physical, mental or emotional sensation that the viewer will notice and observe. An inner shift might occur where the viewer feels a resonance of aliveness with and through the artwork.
My work is mostly abstract but full of organic lines, texture and movement. I hoped to trigger a sensory memory and curiosity about being a sentient being.
If you could describe Kyoto with just one word or one sentence, what would it be?
“An ancient cloud that reveals many skies.”
or
“A fragrant cloud of mystery.”
— Birgit Wick, September 2026
What Kyoto Reveals
What struck me most about Birgit’s reflections on Kyoto was her extraordinary patience — her ability to slow down, observe, and truly listen.
At Shisendō Temple, most visitors might sit for ten minutes before reaching for their phones or thinking about where to go next. Birgit can remain before the garden for hours, watching the mist shift through shades of green, listening to the rain, the birdsong, and the rhythmic knock of the shishi-odoshi. She allows the landscape to leave its impressions on her.
Birgit says Kyoto is always speaking to her.
Perhaps it is because she knows how to listen.
She wanders without a destination, studying the contours of old houses and imagining the lives once lived within them. She notices the changing light of morning and evening, and finds reason to pause before a patch of moss.
Through her eyes, Kyoto becomes more than a city of temples, gardens, and historic buildings. It comes alive in the sound of rain, the shifting colours of mist, and the traces of lives long gone.
And this makes me wonder: when a new landscape opens before our eyes, might it also open new horizons within us?
We arrive in Kyoto carrying our own stories, questions, and uncertainties. As we encounter its landscapes, something begins to happen. The light, the sounds of nature, and the thoughts we have yet to understand find space to exist together. What remains unclear within us may gradually begin to take shape.
Perhaps the deepest gift of travel is not simply discovering another world, but discovering something within ourselves.
Birgit listens to Kyoto, and in doing so, perhaps also hears herself more clearly.
We cannot carry home the stillness of a garden, but we can carry the clarity it awakens in us. That may be the most precious souvenir of all.
Birgit once described Kyoto in a beautiful phrase:
“An ancient cloud that reveals many skies.”
Perhaps Kyoto has never had just one face. The longer we listen, the more it reveals — not only of itself, but of us.
Through Birgit’s eyes, I hope you discover another Kyoto. And perhaps, along the way, something of yourself.
