Ikuro Yagi: Grand Nature
October 10 – November 22, 2024
Opening reception with Artist: October 10, 6–8pm
Kindly RSVP: [email protected] or (212) 967-4899
We are pleased to present the premier exhibition for Japanese painter Ikuro Yagi in the United States this fall. Spanning works from 1984 to 2009, this overseas debut showcases some of the greatest masterpieces created throughout his long career. More than 15 painted and collaged works on Japanese washi paper, wood panels, and canvas speak to a universal language of nature and city life in Japan through the visual medium of sumi ink and nihonga. The permeating theme of Yagi’s paintings is the unspoken healing effect of nature on the human soul; a gentle reminder that endless kindness is at the fingertips. The artist will travel to New York from Japan for an opening reception commemorating his first solo show in the U.S.
“Sumi ink is not simply carbon; infusion into the washi paper grants us a sense of holding a piece of nature. Perhaps it is the same sort of sensation as strolling amidst the trees.” Ikuro Yagi (b. 1955) maintains his innovative nihonga painting practice from his home in Shizuoka Prefecture where his roots have long been set. Mount Fuji resides in Shizuoka, and Yagi sees no barrier between man-made spaces and the grand presence of nature which he depicts so prominently. His education brought him to Paris following study under nihonga master Matazo Kayama at Tama Art University and western-style painter Koji Kinutani. The French influence invigorated his approach to nihonga styles, the medium through which he began to depict all sorts of material culture. His vivid paintings of sea creatures, flowers in bloom, and all other sorts of wilderness draw on decorative traditions that defined nihonga painting in the era of ornate interiors during the Edo period (1603-1868).
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RECENTLY CLOSED ASIA WEEK NEW YORK AUTUMN 2024 EXHIBITION
Expanding Earth: New Works by Yukiya Izumita
September 12 – October 3, 2024
Opening Reception with Artist: Thursday, September 12, 6-8pm
Kindly RSVP: [email protected] or (212) 967-4899
This autumn, we are excited to present Expanding Earth: New Works by Yukiya Izumita, marking the leading ceramicist’s return to New York with his fifth solo exhibition in the United States. Over 40 of Izumita’s latest laminate-layered sculptures, flat-folded vases, and tea bowls will be on view from September 12 to October 3, 2024. Izumita’s unseen sceneries of earthen formations demonstrate his capacity to push the physical constraints of hand-built ceramic and miraculously defy the laws of gravity withstanding the intensity of the anagama tunnel-kiln fire.
Yukiya Izumita (b. 1966) has established himself as a most innovative ceramicist from his remote kiln in Japan’s north-east Tohoku region. He seamlessly integrates the geographically-specific elements of Iwate Prefecture—namely its harsh northern climate and rural seaside locale—into the black, yellow, and red clay. Izumita hand-carries the coastal clay back to his studio in huge loads and driftwood, too, is an aspect of his craft; his creations are born from what is washed ashore and the sea-soaked salvages lend a rudimentary salt-firing element that appears rustic and ancient encased in rare manganese glaze. Izumita seeks out a language of lightness in his sculptures that expertly disguises the heavy reality of earth. His designs seem to float without concern; the ceramic walls are shaped on paper sheets at calculated angles in perfect balance. The salt-rich clay is combined with Chamotte to emulate the rough-hewn texture and colors of Iwate’s sea-battered cliff faces like a fossil record of the passage of time.
Izumita’s expression of rock, geochronology, and the tumultuous landscape is deeply intertwined with the sorts of wares he sculpts. He is not ambivalent towards functionality, and in fact Izumita first trained under potter Gakuho Shimodake in Kokuji-ware, which is long lauded within the mingei movement. Izumita persists in Noda Village despite tsunami and other disasters that test his ceramic practice; he has subsumed these experiences into a sensibility for the delicate and naturalistic. His rhythmical and dynamic sheets of clay folded into looping spirals and stacking layers are like the rolling tides breaking on the shore.
Iwate and its climate are as much a part of Izumita himself as his sculptorly hands. At home amongst the weathered land and seascapes, Izumita remains devoted to authentically representing the realities of Japan’s inhospitable northern coasts. His works are exhibited to wide acclaim across Japan, and now, as he prepares for his fifth solo exhibition with Ippodo Gallery New York, Izumita’s ceramics are held in the permeant collections of world-class collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and Minneapolis Institute of Art. In Japan, Izumita is the recipient of accolades including the Excellence Award at the 20th Biennial Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition in 2009 and the Asahi Ceramic Exhibition Grand Prix in 2000 and 2002.
Ippodo Gallery and Yukiya Izumita welcome a collaboration with Bronze Craft Foundry to cast a limited edition of sculptures from the artist’s original ceramic forms, which will also be included in the exhibition.
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About the Gallery
Ippodo Gallery is a cultural bridge to Japan’s living master artists. Founded in Tokyo (1996-), the New York gallery (2008-) presents fine handcrafted and rare works created using traditional materials and methods. Each piece selected embodies Japanese aesthetic sensitivity that is born of a spiritual bond with nature. Ippodo’s exhibition program features unique objects — fine ceramics, lacquerware, metal crafts, sculpture, paintings, and works on paper — that celebrate human invention, the natural world, and sublime beauty.
