KATE THOMSON HIRONORI KATAGIRI
Geneva Collection 2021
Aphrodite, Akasaka Tokyo Midtown in Tokyo, designed and made by Kate Thomson.2018
KATE THOMSON HIRONORI KATAGIRI
Geneva Collection 2021
Kate Thomson and Hironori Katagiri Introduction by Toshio Shimizu Here we are looking at two sculptors: Kate Thomson and Hironori Katagiri. These two artists share their life and work, making sculpture. Although there is a synergy in their work we may see that their past, and possibly their future, may actually contrast more than appearances alone can tell.
On the one hand, Kate frequently uses white stone, and on the other, Katagiri, prefers black stone. Of course the color of their stone sometimes switches, Kate Thomson and Hironori Katagiri, in Ukishima Sculpture Studio, Japan in 1991
yet on the whole, Kate prefers using white marble and granite, while Katagiri goes for black basalt or a type of andesite called “Date-Kanmuri-ishi” quarried in Miyagi prefecture. The surface of Kate’s white sculpture is exquisitely polished, with graceful form. You seldom encounter a piece with acute-angles. Her carvings tend to be rounded, and even flat surfaces are given rounded edges, leading the eye of the viewer to move smoothly over the form. One would be unable to resist the desire to touch as well as look at them.
Fountain, designed and made by Hironori Katagiri Japanese basalt, 90 x 80 x 60 cm high, 2001 XEX Restaurant, Atago Green Hills, Tokyo, Japan.
In Katagiri’s sculptures, on the other hand, even a piece with smooth surfaces
retains the rugged skin of the stone and has rough-hewn outlines, evoking the energy of breaking the stone out of the earth. Alternatively, the sharp morphology of acute-angled edges created by adjoining faces reveals a slightly terrifying sharpness. The difference, though, between the two sculptors doesn’t just lie in the color or texture of the stone they use. In fact, deeper philosophical considerations may lie at the root of their respective methods and choice of materials.
Looking at Kate’s work, it seems to me that the artist is immersed in the history of stone. The essence of her sculpture seems to lie specifically in the standing of the stone.
Aphrodite, designed and made by Kate Thomson Lasa Select Italian marble, 20 x 19 x 85 cm, 2005
Cultures and civilizations from ancient Mesopotamia to Egypt, Greece and Rome used hard, stable stone as material to create sculptures that connect human beings with transcendental beings. Apart from ornaments and tombstones, the focus of their sculpture was the human form, figures of gods disguised as humans. Yet before the Roman civilization, Europe had another stone tradition in the practice of standing stones. It was to build megaliths, namely stone circles, menhirs, and stone avenues. The most famous ones are found at Stonehenge in England, a circular arrangement of megaliths, and Carnac in France, with its straight rows of megaliths. There are also many monoliths, single standing stones. Mercury, designed and made by Kate Thomson Piestra Marina marble, 53 x 20 x 120 cm, 2009
These megaliths were made by the people of the Neolithic era. Older ones date back to 5,000 years BC, approximately the same age as the ancient Mesopotamian culture. The peoples who built them are long gone, yet the stones still remain. Although archaeologists still debate what they signify, one thought is that the stones might aim to connect the outer universe to our ancestors sleeping deep within the fertile earth of our planet. Even if their true meaning is unknown, it is significant that standing stones have become Stellar Wind, 50 x 27 x 185 cm Swedish black granite, 2015 designed and made by Hironori Katagiri
part of the familiar landscape for Europeans. Countless people have come across them. For Kate, in particular, who grew up in Great Britain, these stone circles have doubtless become a deep foundation of her memory and subconscious thoughts. As I mentioned before, the essence of Kate’s sculpture lies in the standing of stone, but what does this really mean? For example, in one of her pieces the stone stretches in a spiral toward the sky. We should note that the stone is a material that originally slept in the earth, and is the Earth itself. On this planet, only humans have succeeded in excavating stones out of the earth and standing them upright on the ground. Is this not proof that humans, instead of merely following natural instinct, can envision existence that transcends nature?
Awakening Landscape, 2015 50 x 27 x 185 cm, Swedish black granite designed and made by Hironori Katagiri
Here is something that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”. A monolith
repeatedly appears as a symbol of human wisdom. The form cut into a rectangular parallelepiped towers in the sky transcending nature. Nature itself is rather chaotic and in constant motion. Essentially, there is no such thing as solid form, since the elementary particles are constantly moving. Ultimately, we could say that existence is emptiness. “Matter is void. The very emptiness is form.” But the existence of the monolith is undeniable. To dig a natural stone out of the earth and to stand it upright, facing the sky: The sky is the universe itself; for humans the universe is a metaphor for a sublime, supernatural place. The universe is envisioned as an absolute space where supreme beings abound, and seeking this heavenly place can be considered the very essence of art. Herein lies
Entrance To the Maze 16 x 17 x 50 cm, Onyx, 2009 designed and made by Kate Thomson
the reason Kate frequently uses white stone. The white stone manifestly radiates light toward the heavens, and sublimates earthly existence into cosmic existence.
Incidentally in Japan, it has been the belief that anything supernatural descended from the universe and alighted on naturally exposed stone boulders, instead of expressing the supernatural by standing stones. As I am not a religious scholar, I cannot elucidate on the origin of this idea, yet we can assume such beliefs arose at quite an early stage. Later on, influenced by Chinese, Korean and Indian culture, there could have been a blending of ideas with people’s longing for Mount Sumeru to be the center of the world
Cloud 9 150 x 135 x 35 cm, 2015 Balkan White marble, Tokyo, Japan designed and made by Kate Thomson
as depicted in Buddhism. From such an intermingling of cultures, a new style of art that aimed to imitate nature was born: the Japanese garden. There were the gardens of the "Pure land" Jodo style from the Heian era, the sparse stone gardens from the late Heian through the Kamakura era, such as those gardens by the monk Muso Soseki, as well as the dry landscape gardens. And there are still numerous types of gardens that followed. A garden can be seen as a model of nature. Abstracting stones, rocks, plants, and water Streamline Moronobu Bijin designed and made by Hironori Katagiri, Swedish black granite, 50 x 52 x 220 cm high, 2011
from nature into skillful compositions. Yet a garden is not natural. The garden is but a manifestation of how we mortal, finite beings, long for infinite eternal nature. Stone holds a particular significance in such gardens. Stone represents the earth itself, without which neither plants, nor water, could exist. Stones have been placed as part of a garden landscape at one time, and as the central protagonists at other times. Moreover, stones were not limited to the garden, entering buildings in the form of landscape painting. A mountain drawn in a landscape painting signifies the stone itself, equivalent to the earth, and from out of the earth water flows and plants grow. I cannot dismiss the idea that Katagiri’s stone sculpture is founded on these concepts. Sculptures with fully polished surfaces are quite rare in Katagiri’s works. Rather, they
Revelation designed and made by Hironori Katagiri. Japanese basalt, 125 x 70 x 395 cm high, 2017 Akasaka Tokyo Midtown, Tokyo
often reveal the rugged skin and texture of the stone. And in the organic surface of his
carvings, we can perceive the genealogy of Japanese art imitating the appearance of nature. A heritage of using artifice and skill attempting escape from nature, at the same time as representing it, to connect with something deeper that transcends nature. It is significant that Katagiri frequently uses black stone. Just like the exclusively black paintings by Pierre Soulages, who asserted that the color black in particular contains all light, Katagiri’s black stone sculptures absorb light, and the light is made up of all the colors, which are themselves the source of the light. In other words, Katagiri’s black stone sculptures contain all the colors of the spectrum. So we can see that Katagiri's colourful drawings and his black stone sculptures are actually linked together.
Isadora, 21.5 x 45 x 60.5 cm designed and made by Kate Thomson Carrara Bianco Italian marble, 2021
Kate’s white stone sculptures radiate light up towards the universe, while Katagiri’s black stone sculptures swallow in entirety all the light of the universe.
Toshio Shimizu Art critic; Professor, Gakusyuin Women’s College; Director, Toshio Shimizu Art Office
Mount Mukai Shiragami designed and made by Hironori Katagiri Himegami grey granite, 7m x 1m x 4.6m Hirosaki City Centre, Aomori, Japan, 1998
KATE THOMSON
Hehet - Goddess of Infinity Carrara Bianco marble 22.5 x13.5 x 50 cm 2020
Timeline Carrara Bianco marble 35 x 29 x 23 cm 2021
Path Finder Carrara Bianco marble 26 x 6.5 x 11.5 cm 2011
Horus Carrara Bianco marble 10 x 9 x 32.5 cm 2020
De Ja Vu Hidden Memory Balkan White marble 8.2 x 8.3 x 13.2cm, 2017
Carrara Bianco marble 14.5 x 10 x 35 cm 2020
HIRONORI KATAGIRI
Eclypse-prominence Indian black granite 50 x 9 x 49 cm 2021
Streamline-coordinates Swedish black granite 49 x 7 x 7 cm 2013
Crescent Moon Swedish black granite 44 x 9 x 43 cm 2018
Sleeping Heart Arabescato Italian marble 10 cm high 2019
Awakening Landscape - Triangle Japanese basalt 42.5 x 7 x 37 cm 2007
Kate Thomson Public Collections: Waves of Affinity, British Embassy Tokyo, Japan Henry Dyer, University of Tokyo, Japan and Stathclyde University, Glasgow, UK Where is the 4th Dimension, University of Stirling Art Collection, Scotland, UK Moon Dance, Iwate Prefectural Museum of Art, Morioka, Japan Entrance to the Maze, Yorozu Tetsugoro Museum of Art, Iwate, Japan Duet, Rachana International Sculpture Park, North Lebanon River Spirit, City of Glasgow, Scotland, UK Keys of Affinity, Otemachi Financial City, Tokyo, Japan Aphrodite and 3 Graces, Akasaka, Tokyo Midtown, Japan Awards & Prizes: 2000 Best Artist of the Year - 1999 prize, Iwate, Japan 2003 Selected artist Kajima Sculpture Competition, Tokyo, Japan 2003 Selected artist Japanese Contemporary Sculpture Competition, Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan 2010 Scottish Arts Council Creative Development Grant, UK 2014 Won competition for Oatlands Square Art project, Glasgow, Scotland, UK 2016 1st prize for Nichi-iko 50th anniversary monument competition, Toyama, Japan 2018 The Morioka City Landscape and Architecture Award, in collaboration with Hironori Katagiri, Morioka, Japan
Hironori Katagiri Public Collections: Awakening Landscape, University of Stirling Art Collection, Scotland, UK Eclypse, Churchill College, Cambridge University, England, UK Awakening Landscape, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan Wind Ring, Kamakura Woman's University, Kaanagawa, Japan The Garden, The British Embassy in Tokyo, Japan Two Towers, Rachana International Sculpture Park, North Lebanon Theatre, Siklos International Sculpture Park, Hungary Lindabrunn International Sculpture Park, Austria Revelation, Akasaka, Tokyo Midtown, Japan Awards & prizes: 1988 Latimer Award, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK 1991 The Grand Prix of Urban Landscape, Landscape Formation, Japan - in collaboration with Park Hills Tawara Sculpture Symposium, Osaka, Japan 2001 Japan Foundation Travel Grant 2001, Japan 2003 Best Artist of the Year - 2002 prize, Iwate, Japan 2003 1st prize for Iwate Numakunai Art Road project in collaboration with Kate Thomson, Iwate Japan 2016 1st prize for Nichi-iko 50th anniversary monument competition,Toyama, Japan
Streamline, designed and made by Hironori Katagiri, Japanese basalt, 2012
Kate Thomson and Hironori Katagiri Geneva Collection 2021 28th April - 16th May 2021 Studio Art Unlimited Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland Photography and Design: Hironori Katagiri Essay by Toshio Shimizu Translation: Setsuko Yamamoto and Kate Thomson Kate Thomson and Hironori Katagiri Ukishima Sculpture Studio homepage: https://ukishima.net Represented by Iain Brunt homepage: artadvisor.ch Email: iain@artadvisor.ch +41762980514 Switzerland +33695209835 France +447557400728 UK