Exhibitions by five international resident artists at Studio Kura will be held on Jan. 27 (Sat) and Jan. 28 (Sun), with an opening exhibition party and artist talk on the opening day.
Studio Kura is an art institution running two different programs: artist in residence and art teaching for children and adults. Located in the beautiful rural environment of the Itoshima peninsula in Fukuoka Prefecture on the northern shore of the Kyushu island in Japan, Studio Kura’s Artist in Residence Program is an opportunity for domestic and international artists to experience and draw inspiration from the rural environment, as well as for Studio Kura’s thriving local community to meet different artists and their works. During the residency, an artist participates in meetings and, at the end of their stay with other participating artists, is required to hold an exhibition and give an artist talk.
Desiree Gedda: “Hide-and-Seek with Folktale Animals”
Desiree is an illustrator for children’s books. She works and lives in Italy. She noticed that animals in Japanese folktales have a really different collective imaginary from European folktales. Experiencing the authentic and pristine Japanese traditional daily life in Itoshima, she takes the feeling and draws about common points between the folktales into her work. The exhibition will be interactive for children and adults.
Maternal Mitochodria (Miriam Sagan and Isabel Winson-Sagan): “Thresh/hold”
A mother/daughter artistic collaborative team by Miriam Sagan and Isabel Winson-Sagan. They are based in New Mexico, United States. They currently focused on a site-specific installation of suminagashi and text. To come to Japan, they had to cross many thresholds: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Through this experience, they express their art using traditional materials–knitting and suminagashi–along with poetry derived from the linked Japanese form of renga. The poetry asks a series of questions about their experience—maybe without answers—but worth asking.
Eunji Jung: “No ISBN”
Eunji makes graphic novels and drawings and is based in Seoul, Korea. She has explored the correlation between the body, identity and the world in various fields of contemporary art.
During the empirical part of self-publishing with no ISBN (International Standard Book Number) in her residency period, she exhibits painting installations with her subject of ‘metamorphosed body’ which is an illusory artificiality of the flimsy adolescent.
Seunghui Sim: “twenty-seven”
Sim is a visual artist specializing in installation and photography. She lives and works in Seoul, Korea. She talks about her own experiences of confusion between the distortion of memory and the actual facts through the medium of photography. At her exhibition, she visualizes her experiences based on memories of her own relationships through photography. The images of photos and texts together will portray the memories distorted by complex emotions of both the past, especially of herself at age twenty-seven and at present time.
Maria Fernanda Carlos: “Today I will say less”
Maria is a multidisciplinary artist based in Guatemala. Exploring the variety of Japanese and Western painting materials, she presents painting installations inspired by eastern philosophies.
Fascinated and impressed by various Japanese art and the softness of Japanese people’s behavior and their manners, her works reflect her inner change in which Japan has inspired her to say less and observe more.
• 1/27 (Sat.), 1/28 (Sun.)
• 11:00~18:00 (1/27: 15:30 opening exhibition party and artist talk)
• Free
• Studio Kura
• 586 Nijomasue, Itoshima, Fukuoka
• https://studiokura.info/en/location/
