HRD FINE ART

Introduction

HRD Fine Art is pleased to announce a two-man exhibition titled "Pine Tree / Rhinoceros Horn," showcasing paintings of Midori Terashima and works of pottery of Tomoko Tsuda. This exhibition is organized in collaboration with Pakupakuan, a gallery located in Aoyama, Tokyo.

Midori Terashima was born in Kyoto in 1972. She earned her MFA in painting at Kyoto City Unversity of Arts. Mainly working in oil painting, Terashima's primary focus is abstract expression, always in search of the ways to create or visualize space on the surface of canvas, using a wide range of colors and various brushstrokes. Well known for her large-scale painting, Terashima has also been active in creating installation work as well as hosting painting workshops.

Tomoko Tsuda was born in Kyoto in 1975. She apprenticed herself to the famed Raku ware pottery master Yoshimura Rakunyu, and also studied at Kyoto Prefectural Pottery Vocational Training School and the Ceramics Course at Kyoto Municipal Institute of Industrial Research. Currently working in her own pottery studio named "Biou Kiln," located in Hanazono in Kyoto, Tsuda is creating a wide variety of ceramic wares, practicing different techniques not limited to her trademark, popular Raku tea bowls, and actively exhibiting her works nationwide.

While this exhibition's main feature will be the two artists' mainstay works, painting and pottery respectively, that are born from their everyday creation, there will also be some works resulting from the inspiration received from each other's work. Words also play some part, where the two artists present their own favorite or inspiring maxims or mottos, and each artist creates artworks based on the counterpart's chosen words, like a kind of dialogue through words and images. The exhibition title, "Pine Tree / Rhinoceros Horn" is taken from this dialogue: Tomoko Tsuda chose "Green of pine tree that lasts for one thousand years," a Zen maxim; and Midori Terashima chose "Wander alone like a rhinoceros horn," a phrase from the Buddhist scripture "Sutta Nipata."

Terashima and Tsuda not only hail from the same city, Kyoto, are of the same generation, but they also share uncompromising, sincere attitude toward creation and exploration in art, though working in starkly different fields, namely painting and pottery. This exhibition aims to stage the clash of the two strong creative personalities, while also highlighting the harmonious reverberation between them.

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Artists' Statement

At a gallery in Osaka last year. I was standing still in front of Midori Terashima's painting for a while. I noticed I was feeling warmth radiating from the painting.
Womb, life, water... I began to see many things there, felt the warmth, and let myself drawn into the painting.

In this exhibition, both of us present artworks inspired by each other’s work. Facing up to her paintings, I have tried to give shape to my emotions emerging from within.

- Tomoko Tsuda

Tomoko Tsuda's works are full of wonders.
Some bowls are in curious shapes that seem to evade the gravity, while others feel warm as if they are gently talking to me.
I wanted to actually use them, rather than just observing them or touching them. So I’ve acquired one Raku tea bowl, and brewed green tea in it, researching how-to on the Internet. I don't know much about tea ceremony, but after several daily tries I began to feel connected with the tea bowl. It was a very refreshing and fulfilling feeling.

The phrase "rhinoceros horn" forms a part of the title of this exhibition. I'm weak and I'm aware of it, so I need encouragement from these rigorous words. And still, I want to preserve my weak self, too. I'm constantly trapped in such undecidedness, and Tsuda's works taught me that there certainly exist the worlds that I still don't know. Okay, I will go on like this, I thought.

- Midori Terashima

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Message from the Co-organizer

In recent years I have had renewed opportunities to see the paintings of Midori Terashima. She showcased several solo exhibitions at my gallery in Kyoto, neutron (2001-2012), a predecessor of my current project Pakupakuan in Tokyo, and back then she used to make a strong impression in my mind.

Tomoko Tsuda, on the other hand, is a representative artist of Pakupakuan, and is an advocate (or I’ve merely dubbed her as such) of “Japanese Hybrid Art,” which is the slogan I’ve coined for my own gallery. Though primarily known as a Raku ware creator, she boasts a much wider repertoire in recent years, including luxurious tableware as well as sculptural, ornamental ceramic works to incorporate modern lifestyle aesthetics. The latest body of work called “Spider’s Thread” is a result of her intensive research into the glaze materials and techniques.

I am pleased and thankful that Mr. Harada, the director of HRD Fine Art, has accepted my sudden and wild proposal to fabricate this rather unexpected combination of two contrasting artists into an exhibition at his gallery. That is, however, because he has probably thought the same with me, that there are some similarities and commonalities between the two artists, notwithstanding the difference of fields.

- Keigo Ishibashi, Director, Pakupakuan (http://www.pakupakuan.jp/)