Onihira Keiji, Makie Box, Ōmurasaki between Sun and Shade, 2025, dry lacquer with white mother-of-pearl, jewel beetle wings, eggshell, gold, silver, platinum, pigments, 6 ¾ × 11 × 5 ⅞ in. (17.1 × 28.2 × 14.8 cm)
Across the Sea: Onishi Gallery with Homo Faber
September 10–30, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, Sept 10, 5-8pm
Gallery Talk by Xiaohan Du: Saturday, Sept 12 at 3pm
16 East 79th Street, Ground Fl, NYC
Special AWNY Hours from Sept 10-19: Open daily, 10am-5pm
To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Onishi Gallery is pleased to present a special exhibition bringing together the work of ten artists, four of whom will also participate in the 2026 edition of Homo Faber on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice this September. Homo Faber, meaning “human as maker,” embodies in many ways the inner spirit that drives artistic creation. The exhibition brings together works in ceramics, metal, lacquer, and other media, each possessing its own distinctive material language and engaging in a profound dialogue with its maker.
As Kaneshige Kosuke (b. 1943) shapes iron-rich Bizen clay into vessels, he is simultaneously engaged in a dialogue with the material. Rusu Aki (b. 1976) wields a welding torch to join delicate fragments of metal, evoking Prometheus wielding the legendary flame. Konno Tomoko (b. 1967) layers countless tiny, hair-follicle-like forms to create ceramic works filled with seemingly infinite imagery. Onihira Keiji (b. 1973) employs gold, silver, crushed quail eggshells, white mother-of-pearl, South Sea abalone shell, and other materials to recreate the cosmos within his lacquer works. Noguchi Ken (b. 1982) constructs sinuous, concentric waves across gracefully curved and richly rounded lacquer forms. Their layered, luminous black surfaces evoke the profound imagery of the ocean embedded within the Japanese cultural psyche.
Participation in this year’s Homo Faber exhibition marks an important milestone in the gallery’s 20-year history and ushers their longstanding mission to promote and support Japanese kōgei into a new phase. Many of the artists in this exhibition have encountered aesthetic ideas and perspectives outside their own traditions. These encounters have prompted them to reconsider the traditions of Japanese art and transform them into forms of contemporary artistic expression.
This fall, their works will cross the seas, appearing in both New York and Venice and encountering audiences from around the world.
They forward to welcoming you soon!
To learn more, click here,