KH GALLERY

The heart, always in search of beauty, can discover beauty even from negative images of destruction and decay, and trying to find the comfortable balance.“That is creation,” Hiroko Koshino comments.

It has been three years since an unprecedented major earthquake occurred. The beauties that are to be dug out from devastation not only to remember meaning of the catastrophe that took many lives, but to renew our thoughts how precious each person’s life is.The exhibited works here convey such feelings.

Paper creases running across the canvas and messy runny paints are the symbol of destruction; attempting to find beauty from those variable images is representing rich gradual tone of colors from the subdued one to the warm one that is touch of spring.

Just like an accomplished chef crafting his/her own recipe, the artist is proud of freely employing various expression methods that she had tried out and developed. Please enjoy Koshino’s brand new pieces of work.

Hiroko Koshino travels to Paris several times a year. One day, during her stay in Paris, she met a man called Aki Kuroda (autonym: Akihiko Kuroda). Kuroda is from Kansai region of Japan (born in Kyoto, 1944), just like Koshino herself. He is a contemporary artist who has been living in Paris for 44 odd years. Koshino had heard of his name for long, however, when she actually visited his studio, she was impressed by Kuroda’s wide range of work styles, significance of the works, as well as his friends from all walks of life. Koshino questioned herself if she can think of any Japanese person who has adopted himself/herself to Paris and France just like Kuroda has while being successful.

Kuroda’s studio is near the Montparnasse area, where “?cole de Paris” artists used to have gathered. During his coffee break, Kuroda meets people at a cafe, where he enjoys chatting, making jokes, and making sketches. Cafe is where he gets inspiration and is the most suitable place for drawing rough ideas. It is therefore fair to say that the concept “Space Garden = Cosmogarden” is created at a cafe. Cafe is an important meeting spot and that the people’s encounters have been generating the works. Humans may be trivial existence amid vast universe; however, that trivial humans meet to one another, think, act, and create a garden where the humans live together. This is what Kuroda thinks the “Space Garden = Cosmogarden”.

For Hiroko Koshino, who has gone through various experiences while developing her own creation, resonated with Kuroda’s thinking. It did not take long before the two artists hit it off and came across an idea of having an exhibition together. For Kuroda, this is the first full-fledged exhibition in many years in Japan. Please find out how he has developed his ideas of “Space Garden = Cosmogarden” through collaboration with Hiroko Koshino, another unique creator. Please look forward to their exciting “spark-sending” collaboration.

Aki Kuroda（autonym: Akihiko Kuroda）

Born in Kyoto in 1944

In 1980, Aki Kuroda exhibited his works at Biennale de Paris. Shortly after the exhibition, he made an exclusive contract with Maeght Gallery; a gallery from which Matisse, Miro, and Giacometti became famous. Kuroda has held myriads of solo exhibitions throughout Europe. When he held his solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo in 1993, he was the youngest artist as an exhibitor of the museum. In 1994, he participated in the S?o Paulo Biennale, where his art was highly acclaimed globally. Kuroda is active in collaborating with architects such as Tadao Ando, Richard Rogers, along with artists from other fields.

Hiroko Koshino

Born in Osaka in 1937

Koshino has been keen on art and traditional arts since childhood. She joined the art club while in Kishiwada High School and studied painting. She moved to Tokyo and studied under the master fashion illustrator Masao Hara while attending Bunka Fashion College. Not only has she been working actively as a leading fashion designer, she has also been committed herself in ink paintings and calligraphy. In recent years, Koshino has been exploring various media including fabrics to challenge new methods and to widen ways of expression.

The theme of this exhibition is “The Gold”. Koshino was inspired by the use of color of an Austrian Symbolism painting master Gustav Klimt (to whom yesteryear was 150th anniversary from birth), along with Koshino’s discovery of Colored Gesso, which was a new material for her paintings, brought Koshino to step into a new paradigm of expression. Klimt, one of the artists who worked in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, is widely known for being inspired by such art as Japanese old maestro Korin Ogata, along with Rimpa School (Korin belonged), and shiny golden ancient Egyptian art. Koshino, who has been working beyond boundaries of the East and West, may have been thrilled by Klimt’s use of color, particularly featuring gold.

The gold and ink, Japanese papers and fabrics – Koshino’s each art work comes in variation and mixture of materials that could look either oriental or Western, and is emitting mysterious attraction. Please enjoy Koshino’s new creations.

The KH Gallery on Ginza Namiki-dori Avenue features a collection of artworks from the artist Hiroko Koshino, using each season as a different angle to showcase the pieces.

In this 3rd exhibition, the gallery is taking a new approach of presenting a Japanese-style collaboration based on ink and earth, incorporating the works of the bizenyaki ceramist, Atsushi Ota.

The echo of blank spaces can be felt in the dynamism of the immensely powerful brush strokes that are the signature of Hiroko Koshino’s ink artwork. Juxtaposed with this are the impressive and adventurous curved lines of Atsushi Ota’s ceramic art, which evokes a sense of soft-shaped spaces. And in the gallery space where these works are exhibited as if in resonance with each other, another blank space unfolds, created from the Japanese traditional natural materials used. The KH Gallery invites you to immerse yourself in the echo of these blank spaces on display in this exhibition.

The KH Gallery opened on Ginza Namiki-dori Avenue in September this year. Thanks to everyone’s great support, the opening was covered by various media outlets and was a huge success, being attended by a large crowd.

This second exhibition features new works by Hiroko Koshino as she continues dynamically producing artworks. The theme for the new exhibition is “The Illusionary Garden.” What sort of scenes do you conjure up in your mind from such a story-like title-

Experimenting with new materials and techniques, Koshino here presents a different style from that of previous artworks. Within the abstract representations in these new pictures, you’ll glimpse the silhouettes of birds and other creatures. Since this exhibition extends over the New Year period, it will also unveil the “Oriental Zodiac Series” created using Chinese ink and silver leaf. The KH Gallery invites everyone to this marvelous new exhibition and we look forward to seeing you there.

2012年9月8日、銀座並木通りに、小篠弘子のアート作品を展示するKHギャラリーがオープンしました。

世界を舞台に挑戦を続けるコシノヒロコ。そのパワーの源泉がアーティストとしての活動です。幼い頃よりデッサンやドローイングに親しみ、常に絵筆と 離れることなく人生を歩んできた小篠ですが、これまで国内での発表の機会は限られていました。このたびヒロココシノ銀座店の開店に際し、多彩な画風を展開 する小篠弘子の作品をご紹介するギャラリーを併設することになりました。銀座の真ん中の地階にありながら、天井高は約６メートル、大きな窓からは自然光も 入る美術館のようなギャラリーです。

本格的に作品を発表する場を得た今、小篠は新人画家になった気持ちで創作活動に励んでいます。オープニング記念展の名称は、「小篠弘子 十八歳の眼差し」。この挑戦的なタイトルからも、新進気鋭のアーティストとしての意気込みと夢を感じていただけることでしょう。