Darshan's Biography
Darshan's mother says that 'Yoriko was born with a paint brush in her hand' as she has loved drawing and painting so much from an early age. Her second grade class teacher was the first to recognize her unusual sensitivity to colours during painting classes. He urged her parents to take notice of the gift, which fortunately her parents willingly embraced. Having been borned with vision impairment, Darshan has gone through much challenges to see and navigate the world through her eyes. Yet, knowing that she could use a different type of a vision to "see," with rainbow colours and intuition, has helped her to find her way through life. Darshan's parents guided her to focus on developing her ability to see with heart's eyes instead of feeling sad about what she cannot perceive in her outer world. Thus, Darshan's love for art florished under her parents' protection. Later, after growing up, her two sisters also provided endless emotional and technical support to help Darshan establish herself as a fulltime international artist. Darshan has lived and exhibited for over three decades in Asia, North America and Europe. She has had solo and group exhibitions in Canada, USA, Japan and Taiwan. Today's joint art exhibition 'Beauty as beheld' is her first art exhibition in England.
Darshan studied and acquire a bachelor of Fine Art in University of British Columbia. She came out of the university world feeling rather depressed as her childhood dream seemed too difficult. Pressuring herself to be financially independent, aimlessly she wondered over through different creative desciplins such as design, fashion, architecture and 3D animation. She dropped out of most of the courses feeling hopeless as she was not able to find her strength in those disciplins. Eventually she met two Canadian painters, Paul Chizik and Lisa Visaje who devoted themselves to exploring the Old Masters' oil painting techniques. Their joy for painting rekindled Darshan's faith in traditional paintings. Darshan slowly chizzled her way out of her creative block untill finally she felt inspired to paint again. As she studied with Paul and Lisa, the painting methods of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Raphael, she became fascinated by the possibility of portraiture. She found out that a portrait can empower and make aware to the people who are portrayed their inborn beauty and unique divine attribute within. Thus, in her late twenties, she mainly focused on creating commitioned portraits. Darshan has created over sixty portraits of people in all walks of lives including the Taiwanese president Shen Sui Ping.
IMAGES: Portraits
Due to health crisis, Darshan ceased to paint in her late thirties, instead she has explored the world of artistic, therapeutic and spiritual movements, learned to share the joy of movements with others through Eurythmy, Spacial Dynamics, waltz, Hula dance and Dances of Universal Peace. During this time, she has worked with children with challenges through Steiner based NPO in Canada. After moving to Europe to join Eurythmy training in West Midland Eurythmy school, she married and became a mother of two children. Since then she has been painting the visions of children which she call 'Children of Golden Dreams.' Now she generates all her paintings hoping to comfort and bring happiness to the viewers' hearts. Besides paintings, Darshan's wish for peace is brought through Dances of Universal Peace which she leads in the local community. Her present long term goal is to futher complete her Eurythmy training through West Midland Eurythmy school.
IMAGES: paintings of children of golden dreams
Presently she is working on a joint children's book project with Mexican author Kali Rodriguez, a grand daughter of a late Mexican president. Kali's family were the pioneers of Mexican tourism which created the very first resort (Rancho Las Cruces) in Baja California Sur. Kali continues her family legacy to connect people to the beauty of the land through tourism and writing. Together Kali and Darshan intend to introduce to the world the rarely known history of Ancient native Mexican people Pericu. The triology will weave real places and historical descriptions of Old California with imagined Deities and nature spirits as characters walk in and out of the world of imagination. The publication and the oversea tour of art exhibitions of this first triology 'Serena' is expected to take place sometimes next year 2018.
IMAGE: painting of Serena
Darshan's profile as Dances of Universal Peace leader can be found at
https://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org.uk/dance-leaders/mentored-or-certified/