We are pleased to present a special small-scale exhibition at Gallery Sekiryu Minami-Aoyama Room, featuring Saori Akutagawa (Madokoro) (1924–1966), an avant-garde artist who passed away prematurely and would have celebrated her 100th birth anniversary in 2024.

Biography

Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1924, she was an avant-garde artist whose work was highly anticipated but passed away at the young age of 42 due to toxemia during pregnancy. Her series of dye-based works, were created intensively over a short period in the late 1950s, depict women brimming with energy—expressing anger, sorrow, and laughter—and have been increasingly re-evaluated in recent years. Contrary to the postwar trend of seeking textured surfaces in art, she used the wax-resist dyeing technique called as the batik dyeing (Roketsu-Zome in Japanese) on linen to create flat images. Taking inspiration from myths and folklore, she presented a unique and grand spectacle through her works.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth this year, a project titled“Museum to Museums” has been held. Her works from museum collections are being displayed in exhibitions held at ten museums across Japan.

Shunsuke Osone, Minako Nakai, Sakura Yabe, ARADOMO, Astrid Köppe

KOGEI Art Fair Kanazawa 2024
Hyatt Centric Kanazawa 6F Room No.602（reception 2F）
1-5-2, Hirooka, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, 920-0031 JAPAN

We are pleased to announce an exhibition "Tsuyoshi Isoe" held in two venues in Nagano and Tokyo. Tsuyoshi Isoe's paintings evoke a profound spirituality, seemingly encompassing life and death, through his penetrating gaze and remarkable depiction skills. This exhibition focuses on the first half of his artistic career spanning over 30 years, showcasing works created from his twenties to thirties. 

This exhibition primarily focuses on artworks recently returned from Spain, including unreleased pieces in Japan, totaling seven works. The exhibited pieces comprise a self-portrait drawing from Isoe's mid-twenties, presented under the artist name Gustavo Isoe, when he began presenting his work extensively in Madrid. Additionally, the exhibition features repeated figure sketches done in front of models and three oil paintings following the tradition of Bodegón, a still-life genre meaning "kitchen items," traditional still-life paintings in Spain since the 17th century.

After graduating from high school, Isoe journeyed to Madrid, a significant stage in Western art history, where he immersed himself in the study of Spanish academic drawing while meticulously copying works by artists such as Dürer and the Flemish school at the Prado Museum. Even after his debut as a painter, he continued to refine his skills and evolve, establishing his unique artistic language. The works exhibited in this show coincide with the period when Isoe began to make his presence felt in the art scene in Spain.

Seventeen years have passed since Isoe's untimely passing at the age of 53. However, even after the departure of the artist, exceptional paintings continue to be infused with new life by the viewers. "It is not oneself but the subject that is being expressed," Isoe stated in the catalog of his solo exhibition held at the age of 50, defining his work as "not merely the patient reproduction of images passively reflected on the cornea but discovering providence from within the space and existence of objects." Isoe was an artist who consistently delved into the profundity of "seeing." We hope that this exhibition serves as an opportunity to reflect on the journey he undertook until his later years.

[Quote excerpted from the preface of "Tsuyoshi Isoe 1994-2004" (Saihodo Gallery Catalog), April 2004]

We are pleased to announce an exhibition featuring the artist Yoko Ebato, who captures the present from a perspective of the future and depicts objects in a delicate manner.

Transferred onto washi paper using carbon, her works are characterized by lines that seem to lie between print and hand-painted art. The effective use of blank space creates a unique rhythm, and the delicate coloring that embraces the presence of objects exudes a somewhat lonely and nostalgic atmosphere.

All the myriad things that surround us in the present will eventually become heirlooms and ruins. Even the forms of living beings will eventually transform into "memorial images."

Around 30 pieces of Ebato's artwork, which are imbued with a sense of "nostalgia for the present," will be exhibited. We invite you to take this opportunity to view them.

Gallery Sekiryu will be exhibiting at ART FAIR ASIA FUKUOKA 2023. We are pleased to announce that five talented female artists will be participating, showcasing their new works. We look forward to welcoming you at Booth No. S39.

Exhibited Artist
Astrid Köppe, ARADOMO, Yoko Ebato, Yoko Ishibashi, Minako Nakai

ART FAIR ASIA FUKUOKA 2023
Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall B, 2-1 Okihama-cho, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka City, Fukuoka, JAPAN
Booth No. S39.

The Book of Hours is a book containing extracts from the Bible and prayer texts that Christians used for their daily prayer. Before the development of printing techniques and the circulation of the paper, in the European Middle Ages, these books were hand-copied on animal skin paper made of sheep or calf skin and richly decorated in the space around the initial letter of a text or the blank space around the text. In this exhibition, the manuscript leaves from the book of hours, which was produced in the Gothic period of the 15th century and originated mainly in France and Italy, will be showcased together with the photographic works of contemporary artist Junko Ikawa.

Ikawa is an artist who carefully places herself in a rift in the real world and creates photographic works inspired by something incomprehensible that appears there. "Here, Now, Anytime" (2003) is filled with light due to darkness, "Babel" (2009-2010) is photographed by piling up a large number of copies of Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Tower of Babel", "All Days Are Nights" (2012-2014), for which shows the border between the ocean and land at dawn, and "Sometime, I… (Paradiso)" (2018 -), which is based on the Paradise Version of Dante's "The Divine Comedy" illustrated by Botticelli. The monochrome world without lyricism strongly affects the sense of light, words, and time of the viewer.

On the other hand, the texture of the parchment, which is peculiar to animal skin, gives off a strong sense of the material. The text, carefully hand-written with a quill and the gorgeous decoration surrounding the initial letter has a silent beauty that does not depend on a specific author.

Seeing a manuscript, particularly one of a prayer itself, around us in this day and age evokes a special feeling. With the development of digital technology, we are living in a world where reading materials are no longer equal to printed paper. At the same time, our society is one in which we live in a flood of words that are read and discarded. When we think about the time when all the reading materials on the streets were copied by human hands over a long period of time, we cannot help but imagine the richness of the time given to them by facing the limited letters and pages.

The passage of time that has flowed through these pages from being opened for each prayer, and the things that would have risen from it, transcends time and space and resonates with the world of work by contemporary artists. Please take this opportunity to see it.

Artist Statement

"Leaf from Book of Hours and Photographic Paper"

It was a supple sheet. I was told that I could see the pores on the surface, and I looked between the letters. I could see tiny grains like air bubbles. It was a parchment with prayers written on it. It was also one body, one world.

I drop my eyes on a page from the book of hours and the photographic printing paper. The paper used to be a beast. And then, it used to be a tree. By stretching it thinly, people wrote down their activities. I also follow in their footsteps and walk the same path.

After a few hundred years, leaves of manuscripts and photographic papers appear here piece by piece. Is the edge of a sheet the edge of the world？ Are they floating in an unknown time and space that has nothing to do with human values or the meaning they seek？ People yearn for what they cannot speak about, reaching their hands further and further with their limited bodies and allotted time.

Junko Ikawa

Gallery Sekiryu Matsumoto is pleased to represent Minako Nakai’s first solo exhibition. She is an artist who creates three-dimensional pieces based on shapes of the natural world, using Japanese lacquer, urushi, which is sap that flows through an urushi tree.

Nakai always says, “Urushi symbolizes my identity”. After a long and complicated process of urushi, keeping her sensibility fresh from the beginning to end, her work is finally complete. The beautiful gloss evokes a feeling of vitality, the traditional techniques of decorating called Raden and Maki-e add a playful spirit and pop feel to her work. Each highlight of her work sparks joy in its viewers; the daring forms, the delicate details, the combination of colors, and the harmony between different materials like stones and shellfish.

The exhibition title, “From Earth To Sky” is taken from the show by Joan Miro, the great Spanish artist, who Nakai respects.

A seed sprouts from the earth and grows to the sky.  The direction of life like this overlaps with not only the fresh plants and fruits she creates but also the young artist herself who tries to breathe life into her work. We do hope you have a good opportunity to experience her creations.

Bloom no.3, Bloom no.1, Bloom no.2 （Photo: Tomoya Nomura）

Gallery Sekiryu is pleased to announce a summer collection show.
We do hope you find the opportunity to see and enjoy 15 artists' works as follows.

Yae Asano, Yayoi Kusama, Fumio Nambata, Toeko Tatsuno, Katsura Funakoshi

We are pleased to announce the gallery’s spring show, Plant Tales, which is an exhibition by three artists; Saya Yamagishi, Astrid Köppe, and Ryonosuke Fukui, who create their work inspired by plants. We do hope you find the opportunity to see and enjoy the “storytelling” through creation by each artist.

♦ Saya Yamagishi [1981 - ]
Living in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa prefecture, Saya Yamagishi creates imaginary plants, which are tiny and elegant, using traditional Japanese lacquer decorating techniques of Japanese lacquer like raden (mother‐of‐pearl work), makie (gold lacquer), and rankaku (eggshells). Each piece is attached to a beautiful short text like a plant specimens that describes the characteristics and origin of the name of the new species. The fictional words by the artist prompt us to imagine the invisible details of the plants or the scenery where they live. You can even wear the objects as jewelry like a brooch.
and more

♦ Astrid Köppe ［1974 - ］
Astrid Köppe, who lives in Berlin, has done all of her work exclusively on the same medium - A4 paper in portrait format. The mysterious objects in her drawings look like plants, animals, minerals, fungi, or some alien hybridized combination of these, and invite multiple interpretations. Her works have been widely exhibited in Europe, the US, and Asia. She is taking part in the Group Show “In a Dream, the Journey Is Within Reach”, from 29 April to 22 May 2022 at CENTPURE in Higashikawa town, Hokkaido.
and more

♦ Ryonosuke Fukui ［1923-1986］
Gallery Sekiryu has held exhibitions which featured “mimeographic works” by Ryonosuke Fukui five times. He has prolifically created over 300 mimeographs in the span of a decade (circa 1955-1965). Even though he used an easy and common print technique at that time, so-called mimeograph printing, his work had a profound and elegant mood. He used waxed paper as the plates and colored them with oil paints. The lines possess a unique sensitivity which are created by an extremely thin cutter.
and more

We are pleased to announce the seventh exhibition for Katsura Funakoshi's print works from our collection.
We do hope you experience the uniqueness and quietness that the various human figures show in his works.

Gallery Sekiryu is pleased to announce a summer collection show.
We do hope you find the opportunity to see and enjoy 20 artists' works as follows.

Astrid Köppe, Masuo Ikeda, Keiji Usami, Shunsuke Osone, Kimio Kawaguchi, Yayoi Kusama, Domoto Hisao, Domoto Yuumi, Minoru Nomata, Moon Seung-Keun, Keiko Minami

Gallery Sekiryu is pleased to present Toeko Tatsuno’s second solo exhibition in three years. Toeko Tatsuno (1950–2014) was born and raised in Okaya City, Nagano Prefecture, which has a rich natural environment overlooking Lake Suwa. She completed the Master’s Program in oil painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1974. From the early 1970s, she began to exhibit Minimal paper works, using the medium of “printing.” From the 1980s, based on the confidence she gained through those creations, she began to develop works mainly on a large-scale canvas. In 1995, at the age of forty-five, she became the youngest artist ever to hold a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Throughout her artistic career, she consistently worked on producing oil paintings, drawings and printworks, while also establishing a prominent position in the field of contemporary painting in Japan. Thus, although she passed away in 2014 at the age of sixty-four, her works have continued to be shown in exhibitions in various venues up until today. Tatsuno’s works are also in public collections in forty institutions worldwide.

The majority of the titles of Tatsuno’s works use symbolic characters, such as the production date and the term “Untitled.” The title of this exhibition TWIN COLORS is a phrase Tatsuno had adopted several times for the title of her prints and oil paintings. It is also one of the few titles of hers that carries a meaning. On the other hand, upon reading her interviews, discussions and limited writings, one can understand that she was the rare artist who could clearly articulate her own works. Her words are inspirational to the extent that they resonate in a way distinctive of artists who have continued to think through painting. Thus, they convey the depth of her paintings, while also steering the viewers to take strong interest in them. The words “twin colors” contain such meanings as: there are two; they are similar; they are a pair; there are two colors; and they have a recurring feature. This phrase allows the viewer to perceive the artist’s unique perspective and come to an understanding of an artist who was drawn to those various conditions implied in that phrase, and who also utilized them as clues to her works. This perspective of hers does not only apply to the works with the title TWIN COLORS but also to many of her other works. Thus, one can say that this unique perspective derived from the artist’s strong sense of adherence. Tatsuno gazed upon elements such as the positional relationship between objects, and their height differences, unevenness, and hollowness. From within familiar sights in her daily life, Tatsuno captured a “motive” for her work, and then thoroughly adhered to that “motive idea” as she developed it into a work of art. Her magical works that are passionately loved by many reveal a rich world with a strong sense of strength, which originated from a common “motive” easily approachable by anyone. Tatsuno’s world of art allows one to increasingly feel a sense of newness and vitality. Please come and enjoy Toeko Tatsuno’s exhibition, composed of approximately fifteen works, including oil paintings, drawings and printworks.

(Translated by Taeko Nanpei)

Ben Nicholson, Lucian Freud, Vija Celmins, Ryonosuke Fukui, Yayoi Kusama, Toeko Tasuno, Keiko Minami, Katsura Funakoshi, Ryusei Kishida, Shinro Ohtake, Yoko Yamamoto

Taro Okamoto, Yayoi Kusama, Sokichi Suga, Toeko Tatsuno, Fumio Nambata, Tatsue Hayase, Ryonosuke Fukui, Katsura Funakoshi, Keiko Minami

We are pleased to participate in the Art Taipei 2019. Biomorphism comes from combining the Greek words ‘bios,’ meaning life, and ‘morphe,’ meaning form. Our exhibition features four female artists (Yayoi Kusama, Saori Akutagawa, Yuki Katsura, Astrid Koeppe) on the theme of organic forms, which refer to, or evoke, living things such as plants or the human body. Please visit us at Booth J10.

Toshio Arimoto, Toeko Tatsuno, Katsura Funakoshi, Yasutake Funakoshi, Ryonosuke Fukui, Yayoi Kusama, Taro Okamoto, Atsushi Suwa, Shunsuke Osone, Yoshiro Negishi

Gallery Sekiryu is pleased to present an exhibition of animal sculptures using dry lacquer technique by Shunsuke Osone at the gallery in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo, from April 6 to 21 and then in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture from May 11 to 26. Shunsuke Osone (born in Kanagawa Prefecture, 1978) graduated from Department of Industrial, Interior and Craft Design, Musashino Art University in 2002, and took masters course of Cultural Properties Preservation, Tokyo University of the Arts in 2004. He was involved with the Institute of Fine Arts National Treasure Repair Center in Kyoto for 11 years, devoted himself into restoration of national treasures. In terms of both technique and sense, Osone's creation is based on what he has done as a restorer touching and researching the timeless ancient Buddha statues for many years.

Japanese dry lacquer technique statue (kanshitsu-zo) is made by putting a hemp cloth on the original form and solidifying it with Japanese lacquer (urushi) to make an external form, then adjusting the surface with a mixture of wooden powder, "urushi" lacquer and flour (a thick paste called kokuso lacquer), and coloring it, repeating this process again and again. One of the most well-known works made using dry lacquer technique is the Asura statue at Kofuku-ji, which is an Asian-specific technique often used to create Buddha statues during the Nara period (710-784). However, historically, in the Heian period (794-1192), this time-consuming and expensive technique had almost disappeared as a major technique for making Buddha statues, and has never been revived thereafter. However, Osone has revived this technique for making his sculptures.

Osone brings Japanese lacquer technique to portray unique characteristics of animals, and we can feel its texture, temperature, moisture, and even a touch of flesh. Osone uses two types of dry lacquer technique depending on the motifs that he wants to make. One is the hollow dry lacquer method (dakkatsu kanshitsu)* and the other is the wood-core dry lacquer method (mokushin kanshitsu)**. * The hollow dry lacquer method: putting layers of hemp soaked with lacquer on a rough core of clay, and then removing the core. A wooden frame reinforces the statue inside to prevent warping. ** The wood-core dry lacquer method: carving the basic shape of the statue from wood. Kokuso lacquer is common for both methods to make details for finishing. His works are more than realistic. We even unexpectedly realize the strong presence and characteristics of each animal.

The 4 new works to be shown are all made using wooden-core dry lacquer. Osone repeatedly visited places to see the models, which are all existing animals, such as a mini-pig, "Chaco" and a Holstein "Kokkou ". So many wordless meetings with the animals enabled him to achieve these remarkably beautiful sculptures. Their facial expressions and poses are unexpected for viewers, because they are totally different from typical images which we see in illustrated books. By introducing 8 works, including 4 new works, the exhibition aims to showcase a world of dry lacquer sculptures as portraits of animals with their own unique names. We do hope you find the opportunity to see and enjoy them.

Toeko Tatsuno, Yoko Matsumoto, Shu Takahoshi, Katsura Funakoshi, Hiroshi Noda, Yozo Hamaguchi, Keiko Minami, Syuzo Takiguchi, Yayoi Kusama, Tatsuo Ikeda, Kikuji Yamashita

Genichiro Inokuma, Masuo Ikeda, Yayoi Kusama, Ryonosuke Shimomura, Atsushi Suwa, Hiroshi Noda, Yozo Hamaguchi, Ryonosuke Fukui, Ben Nicholson

Kenzo Okada, Masaaki Yamada, Syusaku Arakawa, Toko Shinoda, Nobuya Hitsuda, Shigejiro Sano, Yozo Hamaguchi, Katsura Funakoshi, Keiko Minami, Yayoi Kusama

Masuo Ikeda, Keiko Minami, Yozo Hamaguchi, Ryonosuke Fukui, Umetaro Azechi, Toshio Arimoto, Taro Okamoto, Yayoi Kusama, Toeko Tatsuno, Katsura Funakoshi, Toko Shinoda, Ben Nicholson

Shinya Hitsuda, Sokichi Suga, Shigejiro Sano, Masuo Ikeda, Keiko Minami, Yayoi Kusama, Toeko Tatsuno, Masaaki Yamada

Shinro Otake, Yuki Onodera, Yayoi Kusama, Atushi Suwa, Toeko Tatsuno, Katsura Funakoshi and more

Masayoshi Aigasa, Hiroshi Asada, Hiroshi Akana, Masuo Ikeda, Genichiro Inokuma,Yayoi Kusama, Syuzo Takiguchi, Ryonosuke Fukui, Makoto Mikami, Takeo Yamaguchi

Masuo Ikeda, Onodera Yuki, Yayoi Kusama, Atsushi Suwa, Toeko Tatsuno, Keiko Minami

Kumi Sugai, Chuta Kimura, Masuo Ikeda, Hiroshi Noda and more