I think that visually impaired people want to see paintings. Do you know how they feel?

Maris, the first art method to make paintings accessible to blind people, spreads a message of kindness across the world. By showing that paintings can be enjoyed by the visually impaired, it creates opportunities for the sighted to gain deeper understanding of those with disability.

It was in 2009 that I succeeded in creating a technique for finally opening the world of painting to those whose eyes cannot see. I called it “Maris.”

We are all able to rise above discrimination if only we leave our egos behind. Sighted visitors to Maris exhibitions can witness their blind peers enjoying the same paintings they enjoy.

 

 These experiences provided by Maris are opportunities to encounter a realm of Love & Peace that transcends ablebodiedness, ethnicity, gender, and all other distinctions that lead to discrimination. In philosophical terms, my art creates encounters where paintings plant the seeds of understanding.

I am now preparing to launch an art movement of Love & Peace across Europe in 2020. Focused on Paris, this movement will use the power of art to make the world a kinder place. 

From the 1970s to the mid-1980s Joseph Beuys endeavored to use art as a force for changing the world for the better. Over the years, I have made the ideals he expressed the foundation of my work, but I have also reshaped them with my own belief that art completely transcends politics and religion. 

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My vision of art strips away the political and religious aspects from Beuys’ concepts, and replants the underlying mysticism and philosophical thinking of Rudolf Steiner in a soil of ancient Japanese animism and Bushido.

Deeply inspired by Beuys’ concept of “social sculpture”—regardless of any distinctions between East and West—I use my art as a medium for conveying messages on how we can create an ideal society.

Art leads us to new discoveries. And, it has the power to change the world.

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​Liku Maria Takahashi