Rate My Professor Nishiki Sugawara-Beda

Nishiki Sugawara-Beda is an Associate Professor of Art and the Cox Family Endowed Professor of Painting and Drawing at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts, where she also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Portland State University and an M.F.A. in Painting from Indiana University. As a Japanese-American visual artist, Sugawara-Beda specializes in painting and installation, drawing upon her Japanese heritage to explore themes of culture, language, spirituality rooted in Zen Buddhism, and the interconnectedness of land, body, and cosmos. She experiments with ancient Japanese materials and techniques, including self-produced sumi ink from soot and animal glue, kakejiku landscapes, rice paper, and handwritten fortunes, merging these with abstract and expressive forms of modern Western aesthetics. Her practice emphasizes mindfulness cultivated through traditional activities like chadō, ikebana, and shodō.

Sugawara-Beda actively exhibits in solo and group shows nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions at Amos Eno Gallery (New York, 2022, 2024), Cris Worley Fine Arts (Dallas, 2022, 2024), Strata Gallery (Santa Fe, 2022), Auburn University (2023), and Galeria OdNowa at Strzemiński Academy of Art (Łódź, Poland, 2022), among others. Group exhibitions include Spartanburg Art Museum, Morris Graves Museum of Art, Dennos Museum Center, and the Dallas Art Fair. In 2023, the Dallas Museum of Art acquired her four-panel series *KuroKuroShiro – The Four Seasons* (2021) for its permanent collection through the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program; her works are also held at Dennos Museum Center (MI), Morris Graves Museum of Art (CA), and Tusen Takk Foundation (MI). Awards and fellowships supporting her research encompass the Sam Taylor Fellowship (2026), Idaho Arts Fellowship, Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Fund, Seed Grant, Diversity Fellow Program, International Enhancement Grant, and Tusen Takk Foundation residency. Her contributions appear in publications such as *New American Paintings*, *AEQAI*, *Athenaeum Review*, *London Post*, *Art Spiel*, and the full-color monograph *See You There* surveying works from 2012 to 2020 (Execute Magazine, 2021). She presents lectures at conferences like the College Art Association and delivers keynotes and workshops to organizations including Pilipino American Unity for Progress, Inc., OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Business Council for the Arts, Dallas, fostering cultural diversity and exchange.