Katsumi Sugita (Born 1944) was born in Poston, Arizona and raised in central Utah. He was a 3rd-generation Japanese-American, or a sansei. While growing up, his family’s adherence to Buddhist traditions and the propinquity of nature had a tremendous impact on his life, and these continued to be enduring influences until his death. He trained in a variety of media, but finally decided to use brush painting because of its directness and immediacy. Concerning brush painting, he said that it is deceptive in its simplicity and he loved it because of its apparent ease of use. With brush painting, the process is simple and it’s easier to see the errors. He said that the simpler the process of painting, the more flawless the product will be. Sugita studied art and engineering at the Kawai Sumi-e School and at UCLA.
After his graduation, he spent many years working in the world of business, but he continued to read about the life of the great 17th century painter and swordsman, Musashi Miyamoto. This forced him to return to the world of art. Sugita associated himself with the quest for inner peace that was advanced by Miyamoto. His quest for peace was aided by the samurai blood on both sides of his family. Sugita began life without freedom and ended life in the same vein. In his early life, he was incarcerated with his family for four years and in his final days he had to fight a war against the pain caused by invasion of cancer that had weakened and metastasized his frail body - he died from cancer in 2008.
