This February, Distortion Society presents Spaces Between Color, a group exhibition curated by artist Erina Pearl that focuses on the process of katazome. Four artists—Erina Pearl, Chinatsu Nagamune, mizosasora, and Natalia Siu Munro—display a collection of 13 works embodying the meticulous nature of the technique that helped shape the folk art movement in Japan. Katazome is a traditional Japanese craft that uses cut-stencil and rice paste resist (a mixture applied through the stencil to block color from penetrating the surface) to develop imagery and design while celebrating the beauty in nature, objects and life. From imploring natural dyes on ramie (a strong fiber cloth similar to linen) to vibrant pigments on hanji (traditional Korean handmade paper), Spaces Between Color is a dynamic look at how traditional craft shapes contemporary practice. There will be an opening reception on February 7, 2026 from 7-9pm at 155 Main Street, Beacon, New York.

Growing up, Erina frequently visited family in Shizuoka, Japan and spent long days watching her grandmother tend to her garden with patience and curiosity. Later in life, she learned that her grandmother had pursued a certification in ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, but never completed it as her grandfather dismissed it as frivolous. Erina’s practice honors the often overlooked labor and creativity of women like her grandmother. Her deliberate process begins in her garden in the Hudson Valley, New York where the plants she grows act as both inspiration and her raw materials. Working with her own handmade paints from local earth and lake materials, she integrates natural resources into all of her work, exploring the interplay between environment and art. Erina’s work is a reminder that beauty grown slowly and intentionally is always worth the effort.

Chinatsu is a dyer in Leverett, Massachusetts. Her practice in growing indigo, natural dyeing and katazome is a sustained conversation between hand and material—a way to dig through layers of material, self, and surroundings until they become inseparable in the cloth. After becoming a mother last year, her practice and available time shifted and she learned how to work in fragments. Building the pieces over many sessions, she finds space to play with materials—some stencils carry echoes of hand-stitching on old fabrics and others are born from daily mark-making—and this accumulation of layers becomes her katazome self portraits assembled from moments in time.

mizosasora is an artist based in Seoul, Korea. She uses the katazome technique and creates images through dyeing fabric and paper. During a trip to Fukuoka, Japan she encountered a collection of works by dyer Samiro Yunoki at a bookstore, which introduced her to katazome. Implementing these techniques allows her to center her work on natural, energetic forms and colors, while expressing joy and pleasure in the subjects close to everyday life.

Born in London to a Nicaraguan-Chinese mother and an English-Scottish father, Natalia’s work reflects this layered sense of identity and movement between cultures. For the past five years she has been dedicated to the study and practice of indigo dyeing and in 2020 she moved to Oaxaca, Mexico to be closer to the source where indigo is cultivated and processed. Her practice in continuing ancestral techniques is central to her work not only as preservation, but as evolution; she is interested in how inherited knowledge can remain alive, adaptable and responsive to the present moment. For Natalia, the katazome process is a meditation on migration, distance, and the space in between, where identity and belonging slowly dissolve into colour. Through indigo, she can explore the transient and the unknown, examining the meeting point between heritage and process. In this space, dye becomes a language for memory, transformation, and the quiet persistence of craft.

EXHIBITION DETAILS 

Spaces Between Color will be on view at Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, New York from February 7 through May 3, 2026. The gallery is free and open to the public. There will be an opening reception on February 7, 2026 from 7-9pm. 

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