Well-known Itoshima artist-run gallery, studio and residency program Studio Kura will host an exhibition featuring the work of international artists. This time’s exhibition will feature works by six groups of eight artists.
• 10/22 (Sat.), 10/23 (Sun.)
• 11:00~17:00
• Artist talk: 10/22 (Sat.)14:30~
* To prevent the spread of coronavirus, we ask visitors to use our hand sanitizer and their own facemask if possible to enter, thank you.
• Free entry
• Studio Kura Gallery
• 586 Nijo-masue, Itoshima City, Fukuoka
• 092-325-1773
• https://studiokura.info/en/
01. Floyd Grimm & Ruven Stettler (Swiss)
“Dead or alive: double exposure” / Exhibition style: Mixed Media
Floyd Grimm & Ruven Stettler, both from Switzerland, have been working individually but have been presenting collaborative works since the
end of 2021. Floyd Grimm and Ruven Stettler showcase various impressions produced and found during their first month in Japan – drawings, painted silk, 3d printed objects, and video merged into a multi-media artwork. The main focus is – the search for the living and dead creatures, as it relates to Japanese Folklore and pop culture in the surrounding area of Itoshima.
02. Elisa Bochicchio (Italy)
“Rain Yokai ” / Exhibition style: Drawings
The first time I visited Japan was in July, and it rained the whole month. I definitely stepped into the summer rainy season, and then I discovered that there are many seasons with different kinds of rain and words to describe it. Fifty words define the rain and how it falls or how nature turns when it happens. For this reason, I decided to create some rain yokai to mix my love for the traditional Japanese yokai and the rain. Mine are all friendly monsters, made of colorful watercolors that will come to say hi to everyone and then come back in their clouds-home, waiting for their perfect season.
03. Agnes Ersson & Karl Patric Näsman (Sweden)
“Act of Dyeing” / Exhibition style: Natural dye on textile
During our stay at Studio Kura, we have worked on organic textiles such as cotton, linen, silk, and wool, making natural dyes prepared with local plants and pigments found along the roads and in the bamboo forests around Itoshima. Some plants used are goldenrod, leaves, and stalks from ramie, black beans, chestnut, red cedar bark, bamboo, Kaki-fruit, and Shellac. Through time-consuming preparations such as fixing the fabrics with salts and setting up dye baths with the plants, the fabrics have been processed for up to a full week at a time. Some of the additives we have worked with in our dye baths are iron water, potassium aluminum sulfate, tartaric acid, and vinegar to enhance the natural colors. The final result of the long dyeing processes is then sewn together and stretched upon wooden frames, presenting them as a series of paintings from the Act of Dyeing project.
04. Rebecca Merlic (Austria)
“Diffuse Bodies” / Exhibition style: Media Art
The future of home after turbo-capitalism- crashes is a research project taking place with a three-month field work in Tokyo and Itoshima. The project is questioning the new term of digital home. Fusing reality with digitality into a new version of ‘home’. Living with Big Data in a protected way to produce a collaborative, collective and inclusive digital living. The project is created at Studio Kura, Itoshima in the framework of a strong collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo and opens a virtual world which is not a reproduction of reality, but a parallel world fed by memories and data using new technologies. The Gamescene consists of collecting hybrid digital trees and nature from Itoshima combining it with the city scene of Tokyo. It is a real time data project which is created.
05. Christine Vannier (France)
“Japan in the eyes of a Latin woman” / Exhibition style: Painting and Video
Christine Vannier is a visual artist. Self-taught, her artistic passion is revealed at the age of 4 old years where she imagined she could eat colors as greediness. Today, with an Architect’s past, his work is guided by a desire to always go further towards a universal language. Christine believes ill in the emotional intelligence of the body. It is the momentum of the gesture that expresses his personal feelings. She uses this artist residency to express her impression about marvelous Japan.
06. Katerina Kerouli (UK)
“Notes on Japan” / Exhibition style: Mixed Media
Katerina Kelouri is a British-Greek multi-creator based in London. She published her first children’s books in 2020, “ROAR!” and they have been rolled out in the US, Europe and Asia. While playing with all forms of creativity and media, most of her earth colors and nature
paintings are created digitally. For this residency, she is trying her hand at knitting frames and drawing illustrations of things of interest she finds in Japan.
