SOMEYA Satoshi - Department of Art and Art History: University of Hawaii at Manoa

EXHIBITION

On view as a part of IMAYŌ: JAPAN’S NEW TRADITIONISTS at

The Art Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
October 2 – December 2, 2016
&
Honolulu Museum of Art
October 13, 2016 – January 8, 2017

Friday, October 21 / UHM Art Building, room #101
3:00–4:30 p.m. Workshop on the lacquer arts and the lacquering process by lacquer artist SOMEYA Satoshi
free and open to the public

SOMEYA Satoshi

SOMEYA Satoshi has been described as “one of the most significant contemporary lacquer artists working in Japan today.” (Japan Times, 12 Dec. 2013) His work combines objects of daily use, such as bathing buckets, serving trays, and soup bowls, with a wide array of natural materials, including animal bones, horns and antlers, sand, stones, leaves and branches. In the process, he implements a range of traditional lacquer methods passed down from pre-modern eras, such as the kanshitsu or “dry lacquer” technique, the origins of which date to Japan’s Nara period (710–784). After creating his forms, he embellishes them with designs inspired by calligraphy, traditional Japanese textile patterns, and even contemporary manga or comic books. His work defies ordinary definitions of lacquer art and successfully challenges the perceived limits of this extremely difficult and, in some ways, most conservative of traditional Japanese art forms.