HO N M A HIDE AK I
Flowing Pattern 2018 2018, 34 × 27 × 8.5 inches Winner of the 2018 Tokusen Prize
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HONM A HIDEAKI Anniversaries are important to Honma Hideaki. Over the course of fifteen years and four shows with TAI Modern, we have celebrated several anniversaries with him. Honma’s first solo show in the US in 2007 was in honor of his 20th year as a bamboo artist. His second show, in 2012, recognized the 25th anniversary of the first public exhibition of Honma’s work. Six years later, we commemorated his 30th anniversary. This show honors his 35th year as an artist. For Honma, marking important milestones with a solo exhibition creates a valuable opportunity to look at who he is as an artist and compare it to who he was. Recognizing the progression of his work over time generates energy and impetus for him to continue growing as an artist. Honma is very much a person who looks backwards to move forward. Dialogue with the past is an especially strong motif in this exhibition. Though, with the exception of one work from 1990, this exhibition is comprised of works made in the last five years, there are many thematic ties to Honma’s early years learning about art and bamboo under his father Kazuaki’s tutelage. Perhaps Honma’s son’s decision to follow in his footsteps or his father’s death in 2017 inspired this artistic introspection. Honma’s two newest series, Twin Currents and Triangle, find the artist returning to signature techniques he learned from his father and making them his own. Pine needle plaiting and its variant, blue ocean plaiting, were favorites of Kazuaki’s and the first type of weaving Honma learned. Many of his early works use it heavily. Pine needle plaiting is not particularly well - suited to sculpture; its power lies in the textural richness of the surface it creates, not in the delineation of shapes in space. As Honma developed his personal style as an artist, which expresses the surging of waves and wind through powerful, propulsive curves, he began to favor other techniques. He didn’t abandon
Flowing Pattern, 2021, 26 × 17 × 7 inches
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pine needle plaiting entirely, but it tended to appear in quieter pieces or serve a more secondary role. In his Twin Currents series, Honma integrates this technique into compositions of intense dynamism in a way that heightens the sculptures’ sense of movement. At first glance, Honma’s Twin Currents pieces look as if the artist picked up a strip of wet paper and let a stiff arctic breeze freeze it into place. This feeling of spontaneity can only be achieved through many laborious steps. Nemagari bamboo poles are bent by heat incrementally to match the lines of a life-size drawing. These bent poles frame two ribbons of pine needle and blue ocean plaited bamboo, which curve around each other, stretching out into divergent but complementary directions. If Twin Currents glides, the Triangle series judders through space. A new direction for Honma, the triangular modules in black bamboo were inspired by a joint - tying technique the artist’s father showed him many years ago. Triangle I and II appear to diagram an object moving through space over time, with the visual “ta - dah!!” of a flipbook or Harold Edgerton photograph. True to its name, Afterimage, employing 22 separate triangles, is a more complex work that seems to embody the mind’s eye residue from a flash of light. As if split - second images of an object’s movement through space and time are overlaid upon one another, it just may be bamboo art’s answer to Marcel Duchamp’s famous Nude Descending a Staircase. n Margo Thoma
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Sound of Waves, 1990, 19.5 × 28.75 × 30 inches
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ARTIST STATEMENT This solo exhibition, my fourth at TAI Modern, commemorates my 35th year as an artist. In 1984, my grandfather Chotaro died. He had started Honma Kogei, the family bamboo craft business, in 1923 on Sado Island. In 1986, I was adopted by my uncle Kazuaki who had taken over the company. The following year, I left my job in the Air Self- Defense Force and joined Honma Kogei. I started by helping older employees prepare bamboo for brooches, necklaces, and figurines. Kazuaki was a well - known artist and was very involved in Nitten (the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition) and the Contemporary Kogei Art Exhibition. When he created artworks for these exhibitions, I assisted him. By doing so, I received some guidance in creating art. After three years, I attempted to make my own work for the first time and created Sound of Waves in 1990. Honma Kogei typically had 20 to 40 skilled employees producing craft items. There was a large gallery next to the shop where Kazuaki regularly held sales shows. In 1994, due to the aging of his employees and the slump in Sado tourism, Kazuaki changed the shop’s focus from mass-produced souvenirs to one - of - a - kind creations. Kazuaki and I started to make smaller original works to sell alongside our exhibition pieces. In the late 1990s, with the help of TAI Gallery, we started to show our art in the U.S. This new business focus gave me more time to create my own work. I have kept up my schedule of creating a major sculpture for four public exhibitions every year. In between shows, I make smaller-scale works. In 2007, I was deeply involved in the establishment of a school for bamboo art and taught students as an instructor there from 2008 to 2013. The number of artworks I could create decreased drastically during this period. Reflecting upon my own art making, in the beginning, I made works that were eccentric due to my lack of technique. Over the years, I have become more careful and meticulous about the details of my work. I create sculpture with a sense of dynamism. I feel my work is a response to the emotions and energy of the moment and, whether by chance or inevitability, each piece is completed as if guided by something other than my own will.
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This year, I am exhibiting two brand- new series, Twin Currents, which features pine needle plaiting, and Triangle, compositions of black bamboo. I hope viewers can see my evolution from my early days to the present. This body of work represents who I am today. I am looking forward to hearing your honest response. That will help me to step up my own work in the future. n Honma Hideaki
Triangle I, 2020, 15.5 × 23 × 16 inches 11
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Twin Currents II, 2020, 22 × 28 × 7.5 inches
Enso, 2020, 20.5 × 37 × 13.75 inches
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Afterimage, 2020, 19.5 × 28.75 × 30 inches
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Twin Currents III, 2022, 17.5 × 32.5 × 10 inches
Triangle II , 2020, 17.5 × 22 × 17 inches Crossing A, 2019, 30 × 15.25 × 6 inches >
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Triangle I, 2020, 15.5 × 23 × 16 inches
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Current — 2021, 2021, 22.5 × 29.5 × 19.5 inches
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Work C, 2022, 29 × 24 × 6 inches
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Flow, 2020, 19.5 × 36.5 × 17.5 inches
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Crossing B, 2021 20 × 24.75 × 7.25 inches
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Twin Currents, 2020, 20 × 30 × 9.25 inches
HONMA HIDEAKI Born 1959, Sado Island, Japan Honma Hideaki is the leading sculptural bamboo artist of his generation. The artist began creating brilliant sculptures using Sado Island’s local bamboo in 1987. He made his public regional debut in the 1990 Niigata Prefectural Art Exhibition.The following year, Honma participated in the nationwide Japan Contemporary Kogei Exhibition, and in 1992, his work was accepted into the prestigious Nitten ( J apan Fine Arts Exhibition) for the first time, kicking off a successful career. Honma would go on to serve as a judge three times for the Japan Contemporary Kogei Exhibition and become one of the organization’s council
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members. He has won the Niigata Prefectural Art Exhibition Grand Prize once, Encouragement Prize twice, and is currently serving as a member of the Prefectural Exhibition Committee. He has won several awards at Contemporary Kogei Niigata Exhibitions and serves as the chairman of this association. He has also been awarded the Tokusen Prize twice at Nitten (in 2014 and 2018). Besides Iizuka Rokansai and Shokansai, Honma Kazuaki and Hideaki are the only father and son bamboo artists to each win two Tokusen Prizes in the organization’s 115 - year histor y.
Outline of a Solitary Fish, 2017, 10.25 × 35 × 4.5 inches 33
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