To The Dawn Exhibition

Began at Shiba Park Hotel in 1994. Starting with restaurant “Primula”, studied the essence of “Escoffier” at French restaurant “Four Seasons”. Assumed position as head chef of ART Lounge and The Society at Park Hotel Tokyo. Offers a diverse selection of cuisine centered on the “freedom of creation” that represents the atmosphere of Park Hotel Tokyo.

– Graduated from New York Bartending School.
– While studying at the university, he studied classical cocktails in New York and then he went to Europe to study mixology cocktails.
– Besides working at Park Hotel Tokyo as a bar manager, after winning awards in various competitions, he launched the Gastronomy Algorithm that creates new cocktails with companies, makes a collaboration of chef’s dish and his cocktails, opens seminar, produces bar tools, and more, and he is active all over the world.
– While keeping the traditional style in his mind, he uses the latest bar tools, unconventional materials, and cooking techniques to finish cocktails, and he has belief of taking lessons from history.

The zodiac is said to represent the cyclical process of life. The pandemic that is currently rattling the world is revolutionizing society, the economy, and our lives. feebee, the artist, commented that this revolution is depicted with the animals that do not belong to the zodiac. If you take a closer look at the cat that looks symmetric at first glance, the exquisitely drawn fur will have you mesmerized. The eyes that seem to draw you in have the sharpness of a legendary beast. Contrarily, somehow a delicate and fragile tenderness can also be felt. We invite you to experience the different sensations that arise through this artwork.

This artwork was created for the artist’s solo exhibition “Nothing Is Without Meaning” in April 2021. “living”, the title of the artwork, is a word by artist Ricardo Gonzalez that could be translated as “being alive”, “living”, or “life”. “living” is not only a phrase to describe himself but also his philosophy. His beautiful, simple typefaces have been used in a variety of forms, from large-scale murals, logos, and advertisements for global brands, to stickers found on the streets. In this new series of works, we see “Breathe,” “Walk,” “Think,” and other actions that are repeated over and over again in our lives. Just as our repeated moments of daily life eventually become our lives, the words repeated by the artist Ricardo Gonzalez are rich in expression and become a powerful message of presence in the present age.

“Nothing we do in our everyday life is without meaning, every gesture unknowingly has a purpose to communicate with others or ourselves. The simplicity of a small gesture can affect deeply the lives of others as well ours. The way we do everything defines us as human beings and our purpose in life. After all it’s a living.” by Ricardo Gonzalez.

The artist, Mr. Ukai is creating artworks with the purpose of leaving his trace combined with accidental and natural beauty. Most of his works are made of wood and urushi lacquer as main components. However, “Vestige 15-03” incorporates gold foil, making it very expressive. The artist carved the shape of wood along its natural swells and knots, finishing his work by applying lacquer. Highly transparent lacquer gives an effect of depth, and shapes created by using the lacquer-applying technique of Ryumon-nuri are truly fascinating features of this artwork.

When I saw “Vestige 15-03”, I thought it had power meant to encourage. Soft wood, carved and then consolidated with urushi lacquer, made me feel its strength as well as beauty inside it. In addition to that, the gold foil is visible through layers of urushi, making it look like light shining from inside. I see “Vestige 15-03” as an expression of an object which became beautifully strong after going through many experiences. I hope that this peculiarity will work as a good encouragement to the viewers of this artwork.

The artist Mr. Takeuchi mentioned, “It is often said that what is important is invisible to the eye, but is that really true?”. Do you have an experience where you were able to see something that you could not see at the beginning by taking your time to observe? I feel it is important to train the skills of “observing” and “waiting”, so I decided to observe and talk with this artwork during this exhibition.

If you enjoy taking your time to observe things, I recommend you talk with this artwork.

When you look at an artwork, do you check the title first? Or, do you check the title after looking at the artwork? This time I looked at this artwork before checking its title. It looked to me like a plant, crawling like a living thing out of a big round seed, sprouting towards the sky. However, the artist imagined “pain” from the sharp tip of the horn-shaped protrusion of this artwork, which seems to point to the sky, and gave it the title “index finger and pain point”.

Art is an interesting thing, and different viewers can have very different images of the art. A friend, family, colleague, or just someone you happen to meet here. Why don’t you talk about this artwork with someone? You may find the one who has a very different image you never thought of.

This wood carving bear which everyone may have seen is a folk craft. When you look at this work, you can see a wild brown bear holding a salmon along the river. Though people used to fix things and reuse them in the past, many products are made with the assumption of being thrown away immediately from the beginning, and many products are no longer used or needed in today’s consumer society. This wood carving bear is one of them. The color and shape of a wood change over time not only when it stands as a life, but even after being made into a material that people use for a product because of the warps or cracks due to the moisture. Unless it eventually decays and returns to the soil or is incinerated, no pieces of life are lost.

This wood carving bear, which could not live out as a product, is revived once again as a plant, sprouting new buds from the fragments of life that remain inside.

The theme of this artwork is Transformation. The artist, Mr. Tarutani hopes that you, who are looking at this now, will expand your imagination with a free perspective. He also hopes that this work will gently accompany you in your daily life, changing the way you look at it depending on your mood of the day, and creating a new story. Recently, I challenged myself to climb a mountain for the first time. This work reminded me of the scenery and atmosphere that I cannot usually see in the city and the power that comes from mountains. If you look closely at this work, which is part of the Grains series, you can see tiny grains. These grains are painstakingly pieced together, and each one of them represents the self and others that exist in this world.

What did you imagine as you are looking at this now?