Artist-1

Born in 1972 in Chiba, Japan, in 1997 graduated from Musashino Art University (B.A in Visual Communication Design). The “Manda-la” project is something Usami began at art school and which has evolved for over 20 years.  Each individual photograph features a central figure, all of whom come from different regions and standpoints, and then distributed in their environs are the people and things that express the world of that particularly figure, just like the form of a Buddhist mandala painting.

Some of his major exhibitions include “Manda-la” (Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2015), “Daegu Photo Biennale” (Daegu Culture & Arts Center, Korea,2016), “Why are we doing what we are doing?” (Mizuma Gallery, Singapore, 2016)、“The 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: War and Peace“ (Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, 2015)

Lives and works in Tokyo.

Artwork

Hayashi Yuriko, Hiroshima, 2014

Kubo Osamu, Osaka, 2010

Otsuka Ken, Akihabara, Tokyo

Sasaki Michinori and Sasaki Ruri, Fukusima, 2013

Yuki Koji, Hokkaido, 2011

Monk, Toji Temple; Chief priest, Takio Shrine; Chief Priest, Rokusonno Shrine, Kyoto 2014

Deep Down in the Blue Sky

Born 1973 in Saga. Ikeda earned his BFA (1998) and MFA (2000) in design from Tokyo University of the Arts. He spent the year of 2011 in Vancouver on an Emerging Artist Study Grant from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. He has been based in Madison, Wisconsin since 2013, when he began working as artist-in-residence at the Chazen Museum of Art. Three years in the making, Rebirth returns to Japan as the centerpiece of Ikeda’s first major solo exhibition, “The Pen: Condensed Universe,” which opened in January 2017 at Saga Prefectural Art Museum and travelled to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and Nihombashi Takashimaya, Tokyo.

Ikeda has received high acclaim both in Japan and internationally for his unique worldview that sees both the micro and the macro simultaneously and for his masterful technique. Drawing in infinitesimal detail using a 1mm pen and acrylic ink and without under-drawing, his output is limited to a single 10cm square each day.

Museum Collections:

Chazen Museum of Art, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Hamamatsu municipal Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Obuse Museum & Nakajima Chinami Gallery, Nagano, Japan

Saga prefectural Art Museum, Saga, Japan

Artwork

Rebirth, 2013 – 2016

Foretoken, 2008

Buddha, 2000

History of Rise and Fall, 2006

Existence, 2004