The exhibition title "KIBŌ" means HOPE in Japanese. In this showcase, local Inwood artists Takashi Harada and Kaé Sato will display artworks that depict connections between humans and nature and amongst human beings through our memory. Both artists believe that art is the most fundamental necessity for human life to create a peaceful society and the memory within ourselves and the history of nature has the power to connect us regardless of any boundary among us.
Artist Statements & Biographies
Moonlight by Takashi Harada
Takashi Harada
The forms of cells of living things including plants, animals, and humans have similarities in those structures, I believe. I propose the images of cells and the images of the nature itself as double images of Micro and Macro images at the same time in my paintings. I create my paintings with traditional materials of NIHONGA, Japanese Style Painting, which is a water based historical technique and is especially known to mix the paint ourselves using coarse mineral pigments with Nikawa Glue / animal protein as the medium. This has been the traditional painting style in Japan for more than 1000 years. I practice this technique while creating much contemporary image applying that paints onto the surface of the painting making the layers of colors to create vague images. Those proposed vague images provide people direct easy access to their own unclear memories from when they were amongst nature and connect the present time and the past retrieving some kind of common senses or feelings of human beings with nature as one despite any cultural differences. I collect images as much as I can by observing nature, making sketches, and taking photos while memorizing the view and atmosphere surrounding myself. I use that collection to create basic compositions remembering the atmosphere I felt when collecting the images. My aim in creating artwork is to reconnect the character of the atmosphere of nature with humans.
Takashi Harada is a NYC based Nihonga, Japanese Painting Artist. Harada, alumni of Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, has been practicing Nihonga for more than 30 years, and has stayed in Germany, France, and Canada before arriving in the U.S.in 2001. He is a recipient of the fellowship “Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists” by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japanese Government in 2005. Staying outside of Japan made him to face his identity as Japanese, and at the same time, it gave him a chance to collect the images of nature of other countries, and to contemplate about the connection between human beings and other natural matters. He has numerous exhibitions in Japan and US, including solos at Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, NYC in 2018 and Sato Sakura Gallery NY in 2020.
Odyssey Transboundary by Kaé Sato
Kaé Sato
I believe that there is some kind of element that can be called "memory" remains within "something" which is in every existence in this world, although it cannot be recognized merely by seeing them. That “memory” is also made up from history which inhabits within things. I suppose, it is created from the history that remains in the air, land, creatures, plants, and on the Earth. Because of that memory, there is a continuous present of time. I think that in the form of each object in nature, in the large structures made by humans, and in the small ones as well, there is a history embedded as various memories that cannot be seen visually. That memory and presence are captured in shapes and patterns, movements, the atmosphere, and beyond time and place, and I think that one of the things I can do is to transmit them. The betta I painted in this piece is a small fish with great vitality. Its biology is complex and changes according to the environment it lives in. Despite the improvements made by human, this fish has a growing fan base around the world. I first saw these fish in New York and was instantly enchanted. And now, as I look at our planet's need to adapt to the changing environment, I see the same for humanity. The existence of small creatures reminds us of the strength of their lives and the memories that exist in them. With this in mind, the creatures I work with and the natural world that surrounds them are an attractive theme for me.
Kaé Sato is an artist based in Inwood, Manhattan, New York. She was born and raised in the suburbs of Tokyo, a city with a lot of natural beauty, and as the daughter of a famous Japanese sculptor, she was exposed to a lot of art at an early age. She studied traditional Japanese techniques at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, founded in 1929, where she received her BFA in Japanese painting. In her paintings, which are two-dimensional, she is conscious of the three-dimensional structure of the objects she paints, and captures and expresses not only what can be seen visually, but also "what lies within.” Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Japan, the U.S., and Italy.