Frozen Music: Glass in the Garden
June 14–30, 2008
10am-7pm
Hiroshi Yamano
Sponsored By:
When a chef seeks to convey a sense of coolness to guests on a hot summer evening in Tokyo, the serving vessel of choice is often made of glass—as icy as the surface of a garden pond in winter. Since the introduction of glass beads from China in 4th century, the Japanese have embraced glass as a medium for producing everything from blown-glass wind chimes and glass fishing floats to exquisite cut-glass bowls that adorn the summer tables of the aristocracy. Influenced in the 16th century by gifts of glassware from early Dutch and Portuguese emissaries, the Japanese quickly developed techniques and skills that rivaled the great glass houses of Europe.
The Portland Japanese Garden continues its 2008 Art in the Garden with a summer exhibition entitled Frozen Music: Glass in the Garden from June 14–30. This outstanding exhibition complements the Glass Art Society's (GAS) 38th Annual Conference in Portland, by bringing to the Garden contemporary works of art by six prominent Japanese artists, each of whom approaches the medium differently but with a shared sensibility that is both international and yet distinctly Japanese. Included in the show is the glass work of internationally celebrated artist Jun Kaneko from the collection of Bullseye Glass, as well as work by other noted Japanese artists including Hiroshi Yamano, Yoko Yagi, Masami Koda, Etsuko Nishi, and Kazumi Ikemoto. (click links to see biographies and artwork images below)
Yoko Yagi
Masami Koda
Artist's Talk and Reception
with Masami Koda and Yoko Yagi
June 14, 4pm
Garden Pavilion
Past event information:
On Saturday June 14 at 4pm, Masami Koda and Yoko Yagi—two of the rising stars whose works are represented in this exhibition—spoke about their work and life as Japanese artists working in this exciting medium. The presentations were followed by a light reception in honor of the opening of the exhibition.
Artist Biographies
Jun Kaneko
Outside installation
"Lots of my pieces are about space…The orchestration of space… I make marks to create space in between. I'm very interested in translucence: how light transmits through the slab. In glass, it's possible to see inside the shapes."
photo: Kristi Johansen
photo: Jonathan Ley
photo: Diane Durston
Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, world-renowned artist Jun Kaneko started his career as a painter and went on to become a sculptor after moving to the United States to study at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. A student of both Paul Soldner at Claremont and Peter Voulkos at UC Berkeley, Kaneko's exceptional career now spans more than 40 years, and his work—primarily in clay—has been widely exhibited throughout the world. He is included in the collections of more than 50 other museums in ten countries, including the de Young Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, the Wakayama Museum of Modern Art, and our own Portland Art Museum.
A chance meeting with the Directors of Bullseye Glass in 1998 led Kaneko to consider the possibilities of glass as a new medium for his work. As visiting-artist with Bullseye Glass in Portland, he partnered with Bullseye staff to produce several large-scale works, including African Reflections and Colorbox, both completed by Kaneko during his time as visiting artist at Bullseye. These works will be installed temporarily in transitional spaces outdoors in the Portland Japanese Garden. Juxtaposed with the Garden's natural beauty, Kaneko's glass works are stunning in the simplicity of their straight vertical forms and the sheer brilliance of their color. They have never been seen in an outdoor setting before, and we are honored to have this opportunity—courtesy of Bullseye Gallery—to show them for the first time ever in the clear summer light of the Garden.
Hiroshi Yamano
Hiroshi Yamano
The exhibition In the Garden Pavilion features works in glass by five other artists from Japan, including Hiroshi Yamano, recognized as one the most inventive and creative glass artists in the world today. Born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1956, Yamano's refined style incorporates a wide spectrum of materials, such as stone and metal, in a combination of demanding techniques that includes blown and hot sculpted glass, with silver-leaf engraving and copper electroplating. A frequent visual motif in Yamano's work is that of the fish as his enigmatic alter ego—a reference to his personal journey traveling between the US and Japan—an island country whose identity is closely related to the sea.
Hiroshi Yamano attended the California College of Arts and Crafts, the Tokyo Art Institute, and Penland School of Crafts before receiving his MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY in 1989. He has taught and lectured throughout the world, including at Pilchuck Glass School and the Tokyo Glass Art Institute as well as serving as guest artist in Waterford Crystal in Ireland in 1998. His works are in major collections in Japan, the US, and abroad.
Masami Koda
Masami Koda
"I wanted to express how nature is changing and growing without us paying attention… What is happening under your feet? What is happening beneath a leaf? These things are important and have value in the world, whether or not they can be seen."
Masami Koda creates intricate, jewel-like representations of nature in mixed media, combining materials such as wood and metal with lampworked glass. Her graceful and finely crafted glass work explores the relationship between people and nature, drawing attention to the tremendous impact of human presence upon delicately formed representations of leaves and other organic forms.
Masami Koda was born in Kobe, Japan, and graduated from the Osaka University of Arts in 1989. After receiving her undergraduate degree, she studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and was awarded an Emerging Artist in Residency at Pilchuck Glass School. In 1994 she received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Koda has been awarded numerous residencies and honors, and has shown her work in museums and galleries throughout the United States.
Yoko Yagi
Yoko Yagi
Inspired by the work of the world-renowned glass artist Klaus Moje of Australia, Yoko Yagi has pursued a career in glassmaking since the day she first saw a photo of Moje's work on the cover of a magazine. She took a workshop with Moje in 1998, and later served as his interpreter and assistant in Japan. Following in her mentor's path, she has devoted herself since then to exploring techniques of glass fusing. Obsessed with creating patterns, she started working with murrine (mosaic canes), a Venetian glass technique perfected in Murano, Italy. Working with sheets of Bullseye glass, Ms. Yagi creates finely crafted, three-dimensional works inspired by the two-dimensional patterns seen in traditional textiles, knits, baskets and kumihimo (the Japanese craft of making braided cords). Fascinated by traditional patterns since she was a child, Ms. Yagi enjoys finding both uniqueness and universal expression at the same time in her murrine creations. She currently lectures at Kinki University Osaka, Japan.
Etsuko Nishi
Etsuko Nishi
Early in her career, Etsuko Nishi was attracted to the special qualities achieved in ancient and 19th century pate de verre—literally "paste of glass," a technically challenging mode of glass work which involves mixing frit (fine granules of glass) into a paste and applying it to molds to be fired. Having become exceptionally skilled in this difficult, time-sensitive technique (one more instant in the furnace and the whole object melts), Nishi creates delicate, translucent objects that seem to float like water lilies on a garden pond. These elegant objects possess a delicate, "sugary" texture and quiet matte finish which seem to speak of a captured moment.
Nishi studied at the Royal College of Art in London and at Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, and her work shows the influence of vessel culture as well as that of the art of basketry of Japan. She is particularly intrigued with ancient Roman "cage (layered) vessels" which she recreates, but in an entirely new aesthetic of far greater delicacy and lightness than the opaque, static shapes of the past. Ms. Nishi explores techniques for creating softer, almost floating shapes in her multi-layered vessels.
Kazumi Ikemoto
Kazumi Ikemoto
Kazumi Ikemoto graduated from the Kyoto City University of Art and is Professor of Art at Tama Art University in Tokyo. He has taught and lectured at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Urban Glass (New York), Niijima Glass Center (Japan), and others. Having exhibited widely in Japan, Europe, Australia, and the US since the late 1980s, he is acclaimed for his dynamic forms that, upon close inspection, reveal intricately painted scenes of hybrid creatures, whimsical landscapes, and distant perspectives. His enigmatic works are constructed from laminated sheets of glass, painted with representational images and sandblasted to create a translucent effect.
Painting glass with enamel pigments (colored powdered glass) rendered permanent by firing is a traditional technique known to glassmakers for centuries. Ikemoto's enamel painting is executed with remarkable precision and reveals a strong graphic imagination populated with fantastic creatures in complex and distorted landscapes reminiscent of the work of MC Escher. The artist describes these imaginary vistas as "hazy worlds of memories where past and present coexist." His work is in the collections of the Corning Museum of Glass (New York), the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art (Sapporo), and the South Australian College (Adelaide).