“Since 1993, I have been working on carving wood and applying colors to make life-size plants and pieces exhibited as installation.“
Yoshihiro Suda
Galería Elvira González presents the third solo exhibition of Japanese artist Yoshihiro Suda on Thursday November 2, 2023.
Suda creates sculptures in which he reproduces botanical motifs on a natural scale according to the tradition of Japanese wood carving and always in magnolia wood, –hoonoki in Japanese a strong, light wood, easy to work with and that in turn has had an evolution that makes it a special support, due to the historical significance of the wood itself.
On this occasion Suda presents eight pieces, most of them flowers. His work is the result of the reflection on the transformation of a natural model into an artistic object, an exercise of spatial displacement of nature to the artificial design space of a gallery and its unusual location in the context of the exhibition space.
In his installations he refers to the Japanese word ma. There is no specific word in the occidental world to denote this concept, it can be understood as an emptiness full of sensations, it must be understood in relation to its context, to the elements that limits the empty space. It implies the simultaneous awareness of form and counterform. It is a very broad concept used in different notions or fields; it can be mental, temporal or spatial. There is ma between people, between moments and between spaces.
Through his meticulous practice Suda manages to mimic nature with art, highlighting the value of ordinary things that often go unnoticed before our eyes. In the words of the artist: I think art can change our perspective and ways of thinking. It encourages us to see things that we otherwise might miss.
Yoshihiro Suda (Yamanashi, Japan, 1969) was born and raised at the base of Mount Fuji, where he lived surrounded by nature until the age of 18 when he moved to Tokyo to attend design studies at the Tama University of Art. Soon he became interested in contemporary art and had his first approach to handcrafted wood carving. When he graduated in 1992 it was clear that he would dedicate himself to art. Since then, he has been carving with precision and mastery his sculptures exhibiting in galleries and museums both in Japan and around the world. In 2002 he participated in the group exhibition A History of Happiness at the Melbourne Festival in Australia, in 2007 he presented his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in the exhibition Out of the Ordinary, 21st Century Craft and in 2008 he participated in the Bangladesh Biennale. Over the past few years his work has been exhibited at the Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg; Städel Museum, Frankfurt; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen; Collection Museo Jumex, México and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He has permanent installations at the Neues Museum in Nuremberg and the Art House Project Gokaisho in Naoshima. He currently lives and works in Tokyo.
