Shihoko Fukumoto at The Gallery at Takashimaya - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions

Westerners grasp contradictory views of Japan. The Japan of daily newspapers and popular thrillers is loaded by impossibly overcrowded cities, driven by the agency of a brutal economic imperialism which threatens to overthrow its workers, and sinking beneath the weight of its have political corruption. A romantic Japan also haunts the Western consciousness: this Japan is superviseed by the pursuit of perfection in life and art, venerates nature and protects tradition through the ritual practices of tea formality the art of flower arranging and the creation and presentation of the kimono.

This next to the first Japan is conjured up by means of the work of Shihoko Fukumoto. After art-school inquiry of oil painting she mastered the traditional crafts of shibori (tie-dyeing) and bokashi, an applied-dye proces for creating tonal gradations. She works primarily with indigo, a rich azure dye which has deep bottoms in Japanese culture. Fukumoto uses these techniques to bridge the divide between craft and fine art. Her fiber works come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind the Western tradition of the autonomous art thing perceived and function as installations or paintings upon cloth.

Still, there is little about these works that have feelings Western. Their reductive simplicity may have a minimalistic quality, on the contrary it stems from what Frank Lloyd Wright called the Japanese desire to conventionalize nature. A pair of wall hangings entitled The Wind and The Water consist of fabric dy and intricately pleated to create an event of interlocking rows of mild waves. The pleating is part of the shibori proces by the agency of which certain areas remain untouched while others are infused with coloring liquor Instead of letting out all the threats, to reveal the pattern, Fukumoto has left part of the fabric bunched to create the wave effect

Other wall works use the bokashi technique to create luminous layered compositions. artful variations of blue and blue-black saturating the white linen in horizontal bands advise simple landscapes or seascapes. When the bands move swiftly vertically the dark fields are split through glowing columns of white. Their luminosity is enhanced by dint of Fukumoto's tendency to double the loosely woven linen thus that the semitransparent layers shimmer with moire patterns.

on the other hand the most striking works here were the installations. In Firmament, 16 freehanging linen sheets were lined up with equal reason that a sea-wave pattern step-by-step filled the circle at the center of each panel. individual had the sensation of watching a sunrise. The tea form was the inspiration for a pair of Indigo Cubes. The diaphanous walls of these fabric swings (one of which could be entered) were dy to intimate water or sky.

Fukumoto's fabric works have a remarkable, delicate beauty. on the other hand for the Westerner, there is something far and unreal about their moderately cold restraint. Their perfection is as unapproachable and dreamlike as the vision of Japan from which they spring.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Brant Publications, Inc.

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