This piece was created for The Piccolo Gallery’s commission call, themed 'Triptych'. Artists were provided a Triptych maple wood hinged panel to use as their canvas for a concept/style of their choice.
Maiden, Mother, and Crone shows three figures across a wooden triptych, each set in a different season and landscape. A child appears on the left, surrounded by the greenery of Brazil. In the centre, a mother stands with her child in a Canadian winter scene with blueberry bushes around her. On the right the character blends and returns to nature, surrounded by autumn the leaves of Japan. When the panels are closed, the outside doors show three small birds, representing Brazil, Canada, and Japan.
If you appreciate art that explore identity, growth, and the different stages of life, this triptych is for you. It’s warm and approachable, the kind of art that stays with you long after you’ve looked away. This piece is perfect for those who appreciates beautiful compositions, gentle colours, nature‑inspired details, along with a story that's easy to connect with for many.
Mariana's work will be available for purchase at our Community Online Auction in Oct 2026. Purchases help uplift an everyday artist and fuel The Piccolo Gallery’s commission model.
I was inspired by the triptych format to explore what it feels like to hold three stages of life and three cultural identities at once, and how they've each shaped a different part of who I am.
The left panel represents my home, Brazil. The Maiden is a curious child, restless and leaping forward, surrounded by lush and abundant ferns — a plant that reminds me of my grandmother and the best parts of my childhood. Nature here is immersive: it holds you before you know you need holding. She exists in summer, where life was warmer, intense, and completely alive.
The centre panel is the Mother — the moment I live right now as a new mom in Canada. She stands amid open space, surrounded by a blueberry bush: familiar and quietly inviting, but not a place to linger or rest for long. It is winter. A period of stillness and inward introspection.
The right panel is the Crone — and here, the figure doesn't stand apart from nature anymore. She returns to it, dissolves into it, becomes part of it. She inhabits autumn, the season of change and transformation. This panel is shaped by Japan, a place that has informed so much of who I am even though I've never been. The Crone is not an ending. She is the image of a woman who has finally found where she belongs and is peacefully fading into that belonging. A hope for my future.
For the exterior doors, I kept things simple, drawing from medieval ornamental forms, and placed one bird on each: the toucan for Brazil, the crow for Canada, the sekirei wagtail for Japan. It is spring — there is hope for what is growing inside. Three thresholds. Three worlds waiting inside.
Mariana Yatsuda Ikuta is an artist exploring human emotion and connection. Of Japanese descent, born in Brazil, and now based in Vancouver, she's always existed between worlds. In navigating that sense of being a bit lost, she found belonging through making art.
Mariana loves creating idyllic, magical worlds, but she's equally drawn to exploring complex feelings and hidden inner worlds. Her work lives between wonder and vulnerability, magic and melancholy, hope and heartache. For her, it's inside those contradictions and complexities that we find the most interesting parts of being human. And with that, hopefully create space to recognize ourselves and feel a little less alone.
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