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In Solidarity: Interview with Hiroyuki Hamada
In Art, Artist, Capitalism, colonialism, Culture, empire, imperialism, Interview, News, Painting, Print, Sculpture onI have an interview out from Collectors. They have been building an online art presence aiming to create an open community free of propaganda and oppression.
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The final day for the Bookstein show, 6/13/25
It’s the last day to check out the Bookstein show. To me sharing the work is a part of making the work. We are social as a species. My work doesn’t come out of a vacuum. It sits in the flow of time and space reflecting something which keeps us going. It’s just a drop in the ocean just like we are, but I’m happy how it turned out. Thank you Bookstein Projects for making the show possible. The full photo-set is here.
#88, 29 x 47 x 41 inches, painted resin, 2016-20
#100, 38 x 63 x 27 inches (base: 35 x 46 x 26.5 inches), painted resin, 2023
#101, 24.5 x 40 x 15 inches, painted resin, 2024
#103, 8 x 10 x 3 inches, painted resin, 2024
#105, 12 x 24 x 2.75 inches, painted resin, 2024
#106, 14 x 18 x 2.25 inches, painted resin, 2025
#107, 54 x 64 x 10 inches, painted and pigmented resin, 2025
#104, 41.5 x 60 x 7 inches, painted resin, 2024
#108, 36.5 x 55 x 13 inches, painted and pigmented resin, 2025
#97, 54 x 29 x 5.5 inches, pigmented resin and wood, 2022
#102, 9x 12 x 2 inches, painted resin, 2024 -
Images From Bookstein Projects Show 2025 Are Up
Sadly, it’s the last week of my show at Bookstein Projects. Thank you all who went to see the show. And I thank the team at Bookstein Projects for yet again putting up a show, which we can be proud of. Here is a link to the photos from the show for those who can’t make it to the gallery.
PRESS RELEASE
Hiroyuki Hamada: New Sculpture
May 6 – June 13, 2025
Reception: Tuesday, May 6th from 6:00 – 8:00 PMBookstein Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent sculpture by Hiroyuki Hamada. This is the artist’s sixth show with the gallery.
“I don’t really consider myself a ‘creator’ in a strict sense. It’s more like finding the work by letting things happen, struggling through trials and errors, or simply by accidents. It’s humbling and reassuring at the same time. As if art is a path to encounter the mystery of the Universe itself: As if to show us a glimpse of life itself, which finds a home in the most adverse conditions: As if to liberate us from social imperatives which can bind us to a point of impossibility.” – Hiroyuki Hamada, East Hampton, NY, 2025
Executed over the last five years, the sculptures in this exhibition are created from layers of plaster that are built-up then shaved down and built up again. The phenomenological volumes are largely biomorphic and most often an amalgamation of geometric solids that invite the viewer to walk around the works. Closer inspection reveals surfaces that show the marks of human labor – indented drill marks, inlayed resin and painted bands – and attest to the artists’ origins as a painter.
Hamada’s work often presents itself to the viewer in seemingly opposing dualities: archaic and futuristic, natural and industrial, austere and inviting. Indeed, the sculptures are as evocative as they are otherworldly, and yet, it is this seemingly polemic relationship that drives the artist’s practice. Hamada explains that within his studio he strives “to find fine balance in elements to see things being harmonized, opposing elements coexisting in meaningful ways, richness and warmth being born out of raw materials.”
Hiroyuki Hamada was born in 1968 in Tokyo, Japan. He moved to the United States at the age of 18. Hamada studied at West Liberty State College, WV before receiving his MFA from the University of Maryland. He was the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2009 and 2017 and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1998, and most recently, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2018. Recent institutional exhibitions include Hiroyuki Hamada at the Parrish Art Museum Road Show (2023), Hiroyuki Hamada: Recent Works at ‘T’ Space, Rhinebeck, NY (2020), Hiroyuki Hamada: Paintings at the Duck Creek Arts Center, East Hampton, NY (2019) and Hiroyuki Hamada: Sculptures and Prints at Guild Hall Center for Visual and Performing Arts, East Hampton, NY (2018). Hamada has been profiled in numerous publications including Tristan Manco’s Raw + Material = Art (Thames & Hudson). The artist lives and works in East Hampton, NY.
Hiroyuki Hamada: New Sculpture will be on view from May 6 – June 13, 2025. An opening reception will be held on Tuesday, May 6th from 6:00 – 8:00 PM. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. For additional information and/or visual materials, please contact the gallery at (212) 750-0949 or by email at info@booksteinprojects.com.
#88, 29 x 47 x 41 inches, painted resin, 2016-20 (L), #107, 54 x 64 x 10 inches, painted and pigmented resin, 2025 (C) and #101, 24.5 x 40 x 15 inches, painted resin, 2024 (R) -
Hiroyuki Hamada: New Sculpture at Bookstein Projects 2025
I’ll be showing a group of new work at Bookstein Projects in NYC soon. I’ve had great time working on the pieces. Each piece reminds me of the memories of the struggles, the discoveries and excitements in the making process. I’m grateful and happy to share the work with you. Thank you Lori and Joseph at Bookstein Projects for working with me. The show opens on May 6th 2025. It will run through June 13th 2025. The gallery is open Monday to Friday, 11am to 6pm.
Hiroyuki Hamada: New Sculpture
Bookstein Projects
39 East 78th Street
10075 New York City
United States
https://www.booksteinprojects.com/exhibitions/hiroyuki-hamada-new-sculptureOpening
Tue 06 May 2025
18:00 – 20:00Date
06 May 2025 – 13 Jun 2025
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A New Piece, #107
My studio is in woods. Sometimes, when I walk back to our house at night, the darkness erases traces of “civilization” and confronts me with an uncanny feeling of being in nature alone.
The other night, on the freshly snowed ground, I spotted the foot prints of a creature. From the size and shape, it must have been a fox. I’ve only seen two of them around. One time, the circle of my flashlight revealed a small owl on the ground. It must have been startled by the light, it was frozen. It was a rare sighting of the unusually shaped bird at a close range.
My mind struggles to imagine their lives but it only ends in feeling a sense of awe toward them and their habitat.
Working in my studio sort of mirrors those experiences. Sometimes I get to encounter something that I want to share with you. Thank you for seeing my work.
#107, 54 x 64 x 10 inches, pigmented resin, 2025
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A new piece, #106
In Art, Artist, creative process, From the Studio, making process, new work, News, Painting, Sculpture onIn the series of smaller works I recently started, I use the by-products of the pigmented resin sheets which cover the surfaces of the larger pieces. I have a big pile of those bits and pieces. It’s interesting that a process for other pieces leads to a starting point for something else. When materials are processed, it gives me glimpses of possibilities beyond established rules and frameworks. Very fascinating.
Also, I enjoyed (struggled) with some paintery stuff with this one, which I appreciated since I probably miss the flexibility of working on 2D surfaces.
#106, 14”x18”x2 1/4”, paint and pigmented resin on wood, 2025
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Hiroyuki Hamada at Bookstein Projects, April 2024
Years ago I watched Agnes Martin’s interview. She was describing how ideas we take for granted get in the way of her perceptions while she paints. Emptying those ideas can be a challenge. She was saying that she was struggling with Darwinism. At the time, this really didn’t hit me, but over the years this idea has become clearer to me.
In order for a work of art to affect us viscerally to our core, the elements we deal with must be observed for what they are, and the dynamics among them must not be dictated by external imperatives which can suffocate our perceptions and prevent the relations among the elements to be restricted within the artificial framework of the social formation.
As we grow from a baby to an adult, we learn rules to be a good citizen. We are conditioned to adjust our thoughts and behaviors to fit within the norms of workers who prop up “democracy”, “freedom”, “humanity”, “justice” and so on. And we are taught what those words mean by those who use those words to profit and secure their positions high above us.
It is a challenge for us to really feel and act so that our feelings and actions do contribute for us in meaningful ways—something we learn to forget to be a good citizen. But I believe this is a must for my studio activities to make a work which resonates in a profound way.
My next show in NYC opens in April of 2025 at Bookstein Projects. @booksteinprojects
Have a wonderful day my friends.
#101, 15 x 40 x 24 inches, painted resin, 2024 -
Two New Pieces, #102 and #103
I’ve been planting fruit trees and shrubs around the studio. It’s so exciting to figure out how plants grow and see them grow. Working with soil wasn’t the thing when I lived in a city. But ever since I moved to where I am, growing vegetables has taught me the rhythm of seasons and forming a little food forest teaches me about how I relate to space. I often wake up early, sometimes even before sun rise, to get to the garden. I see how the sun shifts and transforms the views. Sunset comes with a sense of calmness and wonder. How long can I be alive to feel this?
Leonard Cohen sang that everybody knows the good guys lost. Still, war continues and slaughter of our fellow humans has been as normalized as the demonization of the resistance. The cage of capitalism, with the help of new technologies, has become smaller with more rules, further domesticating the ways we express and relate to each other. But just as indigenous people still survive without their stolen lands we live under the new reality.
Regardless, the guiding hand in my studio keeps moving just as it does in my garden.
Two new small pieces:
#102 8x10x3 inches, painted resin, 2024
#102 detai,l 8x10x3 inches, painted resin, 2024
#102 detai,l 8x10x3 inches, painted resin, 2024
#103, 9x12x2 inches, painted resin, 2024
#103, 9x12x2 inches, painted resin, 2024
#103 detail, 9x12x2 inches, painted resin, 2024,
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Lucent at Highlanes Gallery
The traveling show Lucent curated by David Quinn has opened Saturday February 10th at its 2nd venue Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda Ireland .
The show features works by twelve artists. David as a curator certainly reflects his keen perception for unknown, indescribable visual sensation and delicate yet tangible, visceral presences apparent in his paintings. The venue used to be a church, converted into a community art place. It houses multiple exhibition spaces. It is located in the heart of the ancient town known for its historical monuments, an hour north of Dublin by car.
The exhibition includes works by Charles Brady, Niamh Clarke, Hiroyuki Hamada, Vincent Hawkins, Tjibbe Hooghiemstra , Jamie Mills, Janet Mullarney, Helen O’Leary, David Quinn, Seamus Quinn, Sean Sullivan, John Van Oers
The exhibition will travel to Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford, Ireland in June. Then it will travel to the UK early next year.
Here is more info about Lucent: https://lucent.international/
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Matter on Ground
My show Matter on Ground opened at SoFo yesterday, Saturday 9/9/23. I thank Parrish Art Museum for inviting me for this year’s Road Show, their annual off-site exhibition. And I also thank SoFo for hosting this show on their ground. The show is up till October 10, 2023.
PARRISH ROAD SHOW 2023
HIROYUKI HAMADA:
MATTER ON GROUNDSeptember 9 to October 10, 2023
OFFSITE EXHIBITION
South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center
377 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton, NY 11932For the 2023 Parrish Road Show, Hiroyuki Hamada (Japanese, born 1968) was invited to create a site-specific exhibition at the South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center in Bridgehampton, NY. Now in its twelfth year, Parrish Road Show is the Museum’s off-site project designed to encourage engagement and interaction between artists and the communities beyond the Museum’s walls. Each year, selected artists work with the Parrish and partner venues to create new work and to provide unique opportunities for visitors to see and experience art in unexpected places, from public parks and highways to historical sites and community centers.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Our presence on the planet is a minuscule phenomenon before countless galaxies and an infinite time span. From such a standpoint, nature is undoubtedly an existential matter to us. We, the artists do operate within the social formation, fully subjected to the imperatives of our time and space, but just as nature often defies human attempts to contain and domesticate, art does reach out beyond the social framework in addressing what it is to be human.
I think there is a parallel between nature and art if we position both in the framework of our social formation. We might not generally regard nature as having much to do with social imperatives compared with the legal codes, political environment, and prevalent beliefs among us. But if we see our species from a larger perspective of the geological timeframe, for example, nature does guide us in essential ways. And art does have the potential to reflect where we all come from: nature.
I have worked in my studio for the last three decades or so as an artist. My pursuit in two-dimensional surfaces has turned to three-dimensional ones. The materials have shifted from charcoal and paper, paint and panel, plaster, resin and so on and so forth. I’ve worked with venues of varying sizes and shapes with varying missions in different places. But this is my first attempt in making works intended for an exhibition in an open space with the sky as a ceiling and the ground as a floor. How does the work look under the natural light with the wind, the rain, the smell of soil and plants, the presence of animals, or under the moonlight?
To me, making a work involves intimate observations and intense dialogues with the elements involved. When matter collides with matter, unexpected things happen, and the dialogue becomes a part of the structure. In the process, I strive to capture the mystery and the essence of the unknown in recognizable and meaningful ways. I attempt to feel what is in front of me as the material for expressing what is not obvious in our daily routines in the social framework.
Nature operates according to its own rules and the material tendencies and realities of a given environment. It does not follow our beliefs, norms, and values in manifesting what it manifests. In that sense, my practice always has been about finding some sort of connection to the process of nature. This opportunity to work with the open space at SoFo is certainly a relevant one which I approach with seriousness and excitement.
Parrish Road Show 2023: Matter on Ground is organized by Kaitlin Halloran, Assistant Curator and Publications Coordinator, and Brianna L. Hernández, Assistant Curator, with support from Corinne Erni, the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator of Art and Education and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs. This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the generous support of Jane Wesman and Donald Savelson. Public Funding provided by Suffolk County.Opening reception at SOFO: September 9, 2023 at 3pm
Guided Outdoor Sculpture Tour at SOFO: September 16, 2023 at 1pm
Artist Talk at Parrish Art Museum: September 29, 2023 at 6pm
Closing: October 10, 2023
Parrish Art Museum site: https://parrishart.org/exhibitions/road-show-2023/
The South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center site: https://sofo.org/calendar/hiroyuki-hamada-─-2023-parrish-art-museum-road-show-artist-at-sofo─-guided-outdoor-sculpture-tour-with-hamada/
