Shihoko Fukumoto, a major contemporary fiber artist from Japan, who has exhibited extensively in Japan and Europe, will be showing recent work in her fourth exhibition at Bellas Artes. Fukumoto's education at the Kyoto Municipal University of Fine Arts stressed Western oil painting, but feeling that she had chosen a path not really Japanese, she searched for a new medium which she found in indigo dyeing. She felt spiritually compatible with this traditional Japanese medium that she could use as a contemporary means of expression.

Following are quotes from reviews of Fukumoto's work in American publications:

Fukumoto's fabric works have a remarkable, delicate beauty. But for the Westerner, there is something remote and unreal about their cool restraint, their perfection is as unapproachable and dreamlike as the vision of Japan from which they spring.
- Eleanor Heartney, ART IN AMERICA, March 1994

The work of Japanese fiber artist Shihoko Fukumoto shimmers in profound beauty. Her translucent materials combined with the rich, luminous hues of her dyes-predominantly indigo-infuse her fiber work with a transcendental aura, glimmers of a mystical experience.
- Lis Bensley, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN, May 12, 1995

Looking at Shihoko Fukumoto's recent indigo-dyed fiber constructions is like staring into the abyss of the night sky. The more we look, the more we are mesmerized by the infinite space.
- Kathleen McCloud, FIBERARTS, summer 1999

In the past Fukumoto has created wall hangings, scrolls, theater sets and costumes, installations and transparent tearooms including one acquired by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. In her current exhibition at Bellas Artes, she will be showing a new body of small works of indigo-dyed velvet with gold leaf which are her expressions of cosmic space, especially the moon. According to Fukumoto, "admiring the moon" is a Japanese tradition.