RONIN GLOBUS artist-in-residence program Kacho Fugetsu 2018
2018 PARTICIPANTS Artist-in-Residence Asako Iwasawa
First Runner-Up Ryo Shinagawa
Finalists
Kotaro Isobe Kei Kato Mitsuki Noguchi Megumi Yamaura Ronin Gallery and Globus Washitsu are pleased to announce that Asako Iwasawa has been selected as the winner of the 2018 Ronin|Globus Artist-inResidence Program. The program judges were enchanted by Iwasawa’s lush paintings. In her work, Iwasawa looks beyond the physical reality of the natural world and portrays the spirit of nature. As she treads the boundary between imagination and landscape, she challenges her viewers’ sense of place. As artist-in-residence, Iwasawa will be the featured artist in Ronin Gallery’s summer exhibition, Contemporary Talents of Japan: Kacho Fugetsu. In addition, she will receive up to one month’s stay at Globus Washitsu in central Manhattan, a stipend, and transportation between Tokyo and NYC. During her time in New York, Asako Iwasawa will also be invited to use Brooklyn Botanic Garden as inspiration and as an en plein air studio. Ryo Shinagawa was named this year’s first runner up. Several of his works will also be featured in the exhibition. The theme of the 2018 program is kacho fugetsu. Composed of the kanji for “flower,” “bird,” “wind,” and “moon,” kacho fugetsu evoke both the diverse phenomena of the natural world and a metaphorical significance beyond the physical realm. This summer, Contemporary Talents of Japan explores this enduring concept in a contemporary context. In addition to this years finalists, this exhibition will include a number of works by past program participants. Furthermore, a portion of the proceeds raised by this year’s program will go to Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM The annual Ronin|Globus Artist-in-Residence Program seeks to stimulate crosscultural dialogue through Japan’s vanguard of visual art while providing the opportunity for emerging and mid-career Japanese visual artists to live, work, and exhibit in New York City.
PROGRAM SPONSORS Ronin Gallery
The Ronin Gallery is the leading family-owned Japanese and East Asian art gallery in New York City.
It is home to the largest private collection of 17th-21st century
Japanese prints for sale in the United States, as well as many works by East Asia’s contemporary talents. For more information about the gallery and to access online exhibits, visit: www.roningallery.com/.
Globus Family The
Globus
Family
has
long
been
associated
with
cultural
interchange
between Japan and United States. They have sponsored events at eminent institutions including the Japan Society and Asia Society. Their scope spans dance, theater, cinema, art, craft, and performance groups. Globus Washitsu is a venue to spark the expression, knowledge, and wonderment that arise from dialogue between Japan and the United States. For more information, visit: www.nycwashitsu.com/.
MEDIA SPONSOR Spoon & Tamago
Spoon & Tamago is a Japanese arts and culture blog that spans the categories of fine art and architecture, to product and graphic design. It was founded by Johnny Strategy in 2007 as a means of attracting international attention to the Japanese art and design scene, and is currently based out of New York City and Tokyo. For more information, visit: www.spoon-tamago.com/.
CHARITABLE SPONSOR Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn Botanic Garden is an urban botanic garden that connects people to the world of plants, fostering delight and curiosity while inspiring an appreciation and sense of stewardship of the environment. In the Garden, in its community, and well beyond, BBG inspires people of all ages through the conservation, display, and enjoyment of plants; with educational programs that emphasize learning by doing; and with research focused on understanding and conserving regional plants and plant communities.
ACADEMIC SPONSOR Kyoto University of Art and Design
Founded in 1977, Kyoto University of Art and Design is one of the leading art and design universities in Japan. The university has 13 departments and covers almost all areas of art and design, excluding the field of music. In the school’s 40 years of history, many graduates have gone on and actively contributed to their areas of art and design both in and outside of Japan. Notable alumni of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts include Aiko Miyanaga, Taro Yamamoto, Daisuke Ohba, among others. For more information visit: www.kyoto-art.ac.jp/en/.
Asako Iwasawa
2018 Ronin | Globus Artist-in-Residence
Asako Iwasawa is a contemporary Japanese painter from Tokyo. She graduated from Tama Art University’s Textile Design course before managing Design Studio Himiko. She later discovered a passion for kimono design and worked at the batik studio Kimono Studio Dye Laboratory. Iwasawa spent 10 years living as a farmer in the countryside, indulging her love for nature. Though she ultimately returned to the city, she brought the vivid world of insects, plants, and natural beauty back with her. In her words, “nature is full of thrills and wonders…it impresses me to no end and fuels my imagination...I aspire to portray the mysterious shapes and colors of nature, what we see and don’t see.” Iwasawa looks beyond the physical reality of the natural world and portrays the spirit of nature in her paintings. As she treads the boundary between imagination and landscape, she challenges her viewers’ sense of place. She received an honorable mention in the 2017 Ronin|Globus Artist-in-Residence Program.
Breeze from Morning. Acrylic on canvas. 29” x 80”.
Breeze from Paradise. Acrylic on canvas. 40” x 116”.
Sleep Butterfly. Acrylic on canvas. 40” x 29”.
A Moonlight Night. Acrylic on canvas. 40” x 29”.
Heading Toward the Sky (Night Morning Glory). Acrylic on canvas. 40” x 29”.
Q&A WITH ASAKO IWASAWA How would you describe your process of capturing “what we see and don’t see” in nature? Do you begin with studies of actual landscapes that evolve in the imagination? To what extent do natural realities influence your dream-like works? When I see a landscape for the first time, my soul is drawn into its beauty. My principal action is to feel this beauty, to appreciate it fully. Then, nature begins to speak to me, revealing a lively world before my eyes – a scene of little friends… dancing trees…all blanketed in morning mist.
You mention that you aspire to capture the “dream of nature.” Your work evokes this otherworldly sense of half-waking, particularly in the quality of the light. Is there a reason you choose to capture night scenes primarily? I always want to express the awe-inspiring energy of nature, especially in its destructive potential. Although I am drawn to the branches and leaves that fiercely grow towards the bright sky, I’m most attracted to what goes on in the twilight zone. The moments before morning bear a sense of mystery. Until 100 years ago in Japan, it was believed that foxes and raccoons hid in the fields, waiting to trick people before the sunrise. Today, the time of darkness is the time for plants to think and to prepare their energy before they greet the morning. I want to represent that moment when the morning sun just breaks the horizon. Hokusai’s daughter Katsushika Oi captures this moment in the work “yoshiwara koshi saki no zu”. I strongly admire this work and may have found inspiration in the way she uses light.
Like kacho fugetsu, your work does not present a naturalistic vision of plants and insects, but instead something more incisive. As particular pairings of birds and insects may allude to larger truths or enduring stories in the tradition of kacho fugestu, do you find that your work reflects a larger reality? Certainly, I think my work overlaps with the idea of kacho fugestsu. I always aim to bring the natural world to life and to capture the unusual movement of plants. I add something moving, something small, but something full of life into my grassy paintings. Even rooted grasses and trees that seem not to move can generate free movement in the wind. In my work, I explore this overlooked vibrancy of natural world, the larger realities of plant life.
Do you find that your work in textile design and batik inform your paintings? If so, how would you describe this influence? Making batik-dyed kimono expanded my understanding of color. For example, this experience helped me learn subtle Japanese colors like shijū haccha hyaku nezumi, the 48 browns, 100 grays. Additionally, in textile design, you want to repeat the same shape across a whole screen. Somehow, I carried this effect into my paintings by using a bathtub or a vase as a recurring motif throughout my work.
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The elongated horizontal format of “Breeze from Paradise” and “Breeze from Morning” call to mind the natural scenes that unfold across screen paintings. Do you find inspiration in or draw a connection between your work and earlier works in this genre? The horizontal composition of paneled screens open viewer’s heart. As I use this inviting composition, I find powerful influence in scenes of nature’s power, such as those by Hiroshige, Hokusai, and other ukiyo-e artists. I find inspiration in the distant views of Mount Fuji, lone watchtowers, sprawling landscapes, and waves that rise from the sea like mountains.
How do you intend to use your time in New York? Are there areas of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that you are particularly excited to explore? In New York, I plan to explore both the city and the countryside. I will visit my friends at a lake in the country before I explore the urban nature at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden 4 or 5 years ago. I am excited to return as I remember its lush gardens brimming with action. I am looking forward to my time at the garden and the opportunity to immerse myself in the world of plants that make their home there.
Ryo Shinagawa
2018 Ronin | Globus First Runner-Up
Ryo Shinagawa grounds his contemporary paintings in hundreds of years of tradition. From a simplicity rooted in Zen Buddhism, to the gold-leafed Rinpa school, Shinagawa brings together disparate elements of Japanese art to discover contemporary meaning in traditional materials and styles. In his words, “patterns, history, and thought, they are dependent on a given locale and environment.” As he brings centuries of traditional painting into the present, Shinagawa works at the intersection of the history of Japanese art and its future. Born in in Kyoto in 1987, Ryo Shinagawa received his BA in Japanese Painting from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 2014 before completing his MA in the university’s graduate program. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
Bamboo & Plum. Ink, gold, glue, Japanese paper, wooden panel. 14.7” x 19.6”.
Waterstream and Chrysanthemum. Natural pigments, ink, gofun, silver, glue, Japanese paper on wood. 14.7� x 9.8�.
Katsutoshi Yuasa
2017 Ronin | Globus Artist-in-Residence
Born in Tokyo in 1978, Katsutoshi Yuasa is a contemporary woodblock print artist. His work challenges the boundaries of tradition and technology. This interplay between the romantic and the straightforward—the emotional and the factual—is neither reality nor fiction: Yuasa creates a “neutral space… in a new dimension.” Yuasa received his BA in Fine Arts from Musashino Art University in 2002, where he studied painting and printmaking. He continued his study of printmaking in London, earning an MFA from the Royal College of Art in 2005. Yuasa has taught, lectured, and led workshops throughout Europe and Asia. He has received numerous awards and scholarships, most recently, Grand Prize at the 2015 CWAJ 60th Print Show Anniversary. His work is actively exhibited in solo and group shows worldwide, can be found at the world’s foremost art fairs, and resides in prestigious collections, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Life is good and good for you #1. Woodblock print. 24” x 84”.
Life is good and good for you #2. Woodblock print. 24” x 84”.
Yoshihito Kawase
2017 Ronin | Globus Honorable Mention
Born in Tokyo in 1973, today Yoshihito Kawase splits his time between Tokyo and Ibaraki. He completed his PhD in Japanese-style painting at Tokyo University of the Arts. In his most recent collection of contemporary paintings, Kawase emphasizes the relationship between the image and the texture of the underlying materials that support it. In his words, “for a simple and intelligent composition, the margin plays an important role, comparable to a semi-protagonist rather than a supportive role.” The texture of the paper or silk is as important as the inks, metals, and paints that rest upon it. Kawase’s paintings have been featured in solo and group shows throughout Japan and reside in permanent collections such as the Ibaraki Museum of Modern Art and the Tokugawa Art Museum. He is the recipient of the Yamatane Art Museum Nihonga Award and the 13th Sato International Culture Foundation Scholarship. Named First Runner-Up in 2016, Kawase received an Honorable Mention in the 2017 Ronin | Globus Artist-in-Residence Program.
Dawn blooming II. Paper, foil, gold leaf, ink, rock paint. 12.75” x 17.75”.
Keisuke “OZ” Yamaguchi
2016 Ronin | Globus Artist-in-Residence
Keisuke Yamaguchi’s work blends traditional techniques with thoroughly contemporary imagery, considering the power of forces unseen, both natural and human. Born in Nagano Prefecture in 1986, Yamaguchi attended Nagano National College of Technology for Architecture in 2003. Following his graduation in 2007, he continued his education at Nagaoka Institute of Design, where he studied Architecture and the Environment. His focus has since shifted from architecture to painting. Yamaguchi has actively exhibited internationally since 2007 and was selected as the inaugural winner of the 2016 Ronin|Globus Artistin-Residence Program. Yamaguchi often integrates process and product in his live painting performances. From live painting at the ruins of Ueda Castle in Nagano to Central Park in New York City, Yamaguchi’s draws and enchants crowds with his original technique.
Iris. Acrylic on paper. 15.5” x 10.25”.
Poppy. Acrylic on paper. 15.5” x 10.25”.
Yuki Ideguchi
2016 Ronin | Globus Participant
Born in Fukuoka prefecture in 1986, Yuki Ideguchi received both a BFA (2007) and an MFA (2013) in Japanese Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts. In his work, Ideguchi blends traditional Japanese techniques with contemporary imagery and themes. Take, for example, his use of silver leaf. Rather than prepare the canvas with the expected blue undercoat, he paints the canvas a deep red, trading the coolness of traditional silver leaf for a palpable warmth. Ideguchi has exhibited his works throughout Japan since 2008. In 2011, he participated in The Asian Students and Young Artists Art Fair, held in Seoul, and was featured in the Asahi Shimbun’s Exhibition of Next Art. The following year, he received the Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program scholarship. By 2014, Ideguchi became active in the international art scene, presenting his work in numerous international exhibitions, including the Exhibition of Selected Japanese Artists held in Paris. That same year, Ideguchi moved to New York and became an active member of the city’s artistic vanguard.
The Cart of Reincarnation. Mixed media. 46.5” x 46.5” x 3”.
Cyoko Tamai
2014 Japan Society Artist-in-Residence
Cyoko Tamai was born in Kochi Prefecture. She graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a BFA in Music and an MFA in Japanese Painting. Her work combines unique techniques, a musical sensibility, and traditional Japanese materials, resulting in ethereal and compelling images. Using a fine-pointed steel pen, Cyoko deconstructs and rebuilds: she tears, scratches, and rips incredibly strong Japanese washi paper made by National Living Treasure Sajio Hamada and his wife Setsuko. Breaks and incisions leap beyond the paper’s surface, while choice individual fibers defy gravity, coaxed from the paper to form an ephemeral gauze. “The major theme of my work is to capture life that is unexplained and invisible, working under the hypothesis that each space has a certain life to it. Gravity is a basic element in the world, yet it still remains mysterious. I believe that this mystery in the everyday hints that there is life in things unseen, even if it is invisible yet.”
The Moondrunk. Japanese paper & sumi ink mounted on scroll. 26” x 6.5”
Tamai’s work has been featured in over a dozen solo and group exhibitions in Japan. She was the 2014 Japan Society Artistin-Residence and featured in multiple one-woman shows at Ronin Gallery. She is the recipient of several grants from the Sato International Cultural Foundation and the winner of the Ataka Award. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Muscarelle Museum of Art and the Morikami Museum.
Special Thanks JUDGES
AMBASSADORS
Yukie Kamiya
Kouji Hayashi
Tan Boon Hui
Hiroko Ishinabe
Katsura Yamaguchi
Everett Brown
Director of the Japan Society Gallery
Director of the Asia Society Museum
Senior vice president & international director of Japanese and Korean Art at Christie’s New York
Kimiko Lupfer
Member, board of trustees at Brooklyn Botanic Garden Corporation
Miwako Tezuka
Manager of the Sato Sakura Museum
Founder of the One Piece Club
Japanese culture promoter, writer, and photographer
Oz Keisuke Yamaguchi
2016 Ronin | Globus Artist-in-Residence
Kyoko Sato
Independent curator, art consultant
Consulting curator for Reversible Destiny Foundation, co-director of PoNJA-GenKon
Joji Mita
Johnny Strategy
2017 Ronin | Globus Artist-in-Residence
Founder & editor of Spoon & Tamago Japanese arts and culture blog
Yasuko Harris
Former gallery director at Honjo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
Nachi Das
Art collector & capital market executive
Mary Ann Roos
Art collector and philanthropist
Global art management advisor
Katsutoshi Yuasa Akiyo Yagyu
Project manager of Artothèque
Noburu Tsubaki
Regional director of Setouchi Intl Art Festival, contemporary artist, professor
RONIN GALLERY
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