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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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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/
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lucent at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre 2
Here is a second set of photos from lucent, a traveling group show of small works curated by David Quinn. I know that these images hardly do justice to the raw immediacy emanating from the work. In fact, as soon as I walked into the venue I realized that the reason why we spend so much effort in putting up a show like this is that experiencing the work in person is the only way to actually feel the direct impact of the pieces. The show covers over 50 works by 11 artists spanning two floors of the beautiful art venue.
Participating artists:
Janet Mullarney
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lucent at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
Here are some images from lucent: a traveling group show of small works curated by David Quinn. The first show has opened at UillInn: West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, Ireland. The show focuses on indescribable poetic qualities emanating from each piece. The works require you to gently approach them as if to approach a delicate small insect or a flower and examine carefully to let the light reveal the rich surfaces and intricacies; by doing so you enter into special dialogues with the elusive yet undeniably tangible presence of the works. David has done a great job selecting the artists. His curatorial decisions are masterful. This is probably my favorite group show I’ve ever been part of, and it was great to meet some of the participating artists in Ireland. I would like to thank the director of the Arts Centre Ann Davoren for welcoming us with generous support. The natural beauty of Ireland was overwhelming. It was such a dreamy week being there.
From West Cork Art Center website:
lucent
29 July to 9 September 2023lucent is an exhibition of small works curated by artist David Quinn, involving twelve international artists – Charles Brady (Ire), Niamh Clarke (NI), Vincent Hawkins (UK), Hiroyumi Hamada (JN), Tjibbe Hooghiemstra (NL), Jamie Mills (UK), Janet Mullarney (Ire), Helen O’Leary (Ire), David Quinn (Ire), Seamus Quinn (Ire), Sean Sullivan (US) and John Van Oers (BE). The exhibition runs across both galleries at Uillinn from 29 July to 9 September.
‘Although I have curated quite a few exhibitions, I am first and foremost an artist and not a curator. This exhibition is a very personal project. The work I have included is by artists whose work and progress I am always keen to see. I think there is a lot of truth in Robert Motherwell’s quote ‘every intelligent painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which everything he paints is both a homage and critique.’ To a greater or lesser extent, the artists in this exhibition have been inspirational to me or sometimes it is just as Emerson said ‘in every work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts’.
One of the common threads through the work of these artists for me is a sensitivity for materials and for the quality of line. Most of the artists here also blur the distinction between painting and sculpture. Their sculptures can be quite painterly and there is a subtle tactile element even to the works on paper. The other thing that interests me is that it is often hard to pin down exactly what the works are about (if that is what one is inclined to do). There is an inherent ambiguity in lots of the work, a vague open-endedness. Also the scale that these artists often work on is intimate and personal. The works are memorable rather than monumental, suggestive rather than didactic, playful rather than strict. Where there is order it is often subverted and generally an air of gentle irreverence. Ultimately though the thing that draws these works together for me is that I find them beautiful.’
David Quinn, 2022b
lucent is supported by an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Touring Award and will tour to Highlanes Gallery Drogheda (February to April) and Wexford Arts Centre (June to August) in 2024.
Participating artists:
Janet Mullarney
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Patricia Ayres at Mendes Wood DM New York
I’ve been fascinated by the sculpture of Patricia Ayres for some time. I finally saw them in person in NYC. They are shockingly good. They capture presences enduring tremendous forces with relentlessness and resilience resulting in graceful expression of life. There is nothing sentimental or wishful about the expression. They are simply being there as they are, with all bruises and peacefulness. A highly recommended show.
Mendes Wood DM New York
June 23 – August 5, 202347 Walker Street
New York NY 10013
+1 212 220 9943
newyork@mendeswooddm.comTue – Sat, 10am – 6pm
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Studio Update June 2023
Here are a couple of pieces in progress. I haven’t really made any piece that’s meant for outside, although the thought of it has been with me for awhile. I like the idea of outdoor elements being part of the dynamics. I like the idea of putting the work where it can be seen by people who generally don’t go out to see art. These two pieces will be in an outdoor show which will open this fall.
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Miraculously Wonderful
We just took a family trip to Japan. It was quite overwhelming—catching up with an old friend, spending time with my family, making new friends, visiting breathtakingly beautiful places, enjoying exceptional food culture. Now I’m back home being greeted by new pieces in progress. The fruit trees which I planted last year are growing, showing the unstoppable cycle of life around me.
It’s crazy that all the things we cherish fall into right places more or less when we know that things could go wrong in so many ways. Nothing could be planned to be the way they turn out, but we do find things to be miraculously wonderful sometimes. That’s how I want to work in the studio too.
#74, 24 1/2″ x 24 1/2″ x 57, painted resin, 2011-13
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New Addition to the Site, February 14, 2023
Three pieces have been added to the sculpture section of my site under 1995-2006.
I’ve worked with roofing tar quite a bit. It is cheap and readily available at hardware stores. It comes in two versions, shiny one that runs smooth and one with fibers in it which is more malleable and less shiny. Both can be diluted in solvents. They react in interesting ways with oil paint. It cracks paint when you apply on top of it, making cracking patterns on the surface. It can be thinned to be used to stain porous surfaces. The rich warm black is nice when it’s used as it is. When it’s thinned it makes beautiful brown. I’ve made various homemade paints using this interesting material. These three pieces use the home made paint in various ways. On #46 is applied many layers of the diluted paint, with a polishing process in between. The plaster surface sucks up the paint well, forming a shinny layer at the end. I like how the paint reveals the density variations as marblized patterns. #45 has the same process, but with a surface patterned with various size small holes. The white part is painted with enamel. The surface has my tar encaustic paint as well as black paint. #47 is stained with thinner paint, again circular patterns reveal the density variations in interesting ways. I was a little concerned with the longevity of the paint but they all seem to be very stable.
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New Additions to the Site, January 16, 2023
Here are three pieces recently added to my site in sculpture section under 1995-2005.
I wonder if I will ever see these pieces in person again. Seeing older pieces can be an odd experience. It’s like meeting an old friend but the friend hasn’t aged at all; I meet the presence just as I remember. It’s as if time and space don’t exist where they live.
