Time-Honored Traditions
If you seek art to change your life, look no further than the arts of Asia. The 2023 edition of Asia Week New York marked a return to the in-person gallery walk and continued its even coordination of showcasing traditional and contemporary works of art within exhibitions that appeared throughout 26 galleries. The art of Japan had an exceptionally strong showing this year, bringing viewers to traditional craft that is also a form of high art. Traditional paintings and prints, moreover, were evenly balanced with stunning forays made by contemporary artists in the media of clay, lacquer, rattan and bamboo.
“Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan,” at the Onishi Gallery presents a selection of metal sculptures made by Oshiyama Motoko, Ōtuski Masako, Okamoto Yoshiko, Hagino Noriko and Ōsumi Yukie. These artists only recently began working in a male-only medium, making this exhibition far more novel than one would think. For instance Motoko’s engagement with “shakudō,” the combination of two or more metals, renders collage-like forms and patterns where hues of amber, yellow and black appear as dots across a bright, white metal surface that softens into a matte-like texture. The embrace of imperfect forms and glazes appear in the gallery’s adjoining room where works from a previous exhibition, “Chashitsu — Japanese Tea…
