‘Stream’ has two meanings to me, the flow of history and the fluid flowing form of lacquer.
Shoko Taruma – Artist
The work is deep black, transformed by light irradiation. Analogous forms that mirror the ever-changing flow of history, through curved surfaces of black Japanese lacquer.
Japanese lacquer is a natural paint, a medium 8000 years old. It was traditionally used for tools and vessels of daily life, the decorations of magnificence, pride and power; and in religion, for the statues of Buddha.
Since ancient times, the Japanese sense of beauty has been aligned with the principles of nature and the perception of beauty found in ‘darkness’. Low ambient light of Japanese houses engendered mediums with highly reflective surfaces, the mediums of objects that retained their form in the half-light.
These objects held light, color and their reflective surfaces, a sense of beauty called ‘The worship of shadows’. Having travelled extensively around Kyoto, Shoko Taruma presents a new exhibition of contemporary art that celebrates the principle of ‘shadow’ and the flow of the medium.
