Fudezuka Toshihisa Exhibition

Oct 15 - Nov 13, 2022

Wednesday - Sunday : 11：00 - 17：00
Last day of the exhibition : 11：00 - 16：00

Closed : Monday and Tuesday

Artists in the gallery :
Artists will be present at the gallery on two separate occasions. Please feel free to talk to the artist.

First half : October 15 (Sat.) and 16 (Sun.)
Second half : November 12 (Sat), 13 (Sun)

　Artland Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition from Saturday, October 15 through Sunday, November 13 of Fudetzuka Toshihisa, who is known for his delicate depiction of mental landscapes in prints both in Japan and abroad. Fudezuka is currently based in Tokyo.

　Born in Kagawa Prefecture in 1957, Fudzuka majored in printmaking at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1983, and studied at the University of Alberta on a scholarship from the Canadian government for one year from 1989. He then spent a year at Krakow University of Art and Design and Lodz University of Art and Design in Poland from 1999 as an overseas trainee artist funded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

　His recent activities include invitations to exhibitions at museums in Japan, including the Takamatsu City Museum of Art in 2019, the National Museum of Western Art in 2018, and the Kagawa Prefecture Museum Special Exhibition in 2017. Overseas, he has also been invited to exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 2016, the Art Pavilion at Mile End Park in London in 2013, and the Tikotin Museum in Israel in 2010.

　A unique feature of this solo exhibition is the large number of works on display that use the mezzotint technique of copperplate engraving, which allows for the expression of rich light and dark tones. In this mezzotint technique, numerous scratches are made on the top surface of a copper plate, which is then filled with ink and transferred to paper. By subtly shaving these scratches, the artist can create a bright surface on which no ink is applied, resulting in the expression of subtle tones of light and dark.

　He says that it took him four years to complete the mezzotint technique, which is superior in expressing gradation, because he could not express the softness of clouds as he wanted with the conventional method of making images (images) by digging grooves on wooden or copper plates, no matter how he tried. For this exhibition, Mr. Fudzuka will be present at the gallery twice, once for the first half of the exhibition and once for the second half. Please feel free to ask him about the various difficulties he encountered in creating his works and his aims for them, and enjoy an pleasant time together.

Dates of the first half: October 15 (Sat.) and 16 (Sun.)
Dates of the second half: November 12 (Sat.) and 13 (Sun.)

Fudzuka Toshinao Text

There was a time when I was working on a piece of artwork in which I used clouds as if they were people and twisted them around with a burin. Even if something like a strong, willful "undulation" of a person appeared, the elusive and elusive inner fluctuation did not appear, and I struggled and thought about giving it some time.

A few years ago, I was asked by the editor of the Printing Museum to produce a book of prints with novelist Hoshio Sanae entitled "Cloud Contour," and then to produce prints to decorate the cover of a book of all the guitars produced by Shimo Takahiro, a luthier (guitar maker) of the SHIMOGUITARS. I was given the opportunity to work with mezzotint for the first time in search of a softer expression.
At the "Amabie" exhibition the year before last, I also used mezzotint to create a motif of clouds. The soft and elusive clouds, which could not be expressed by Burin, finally appeared.　Mezzotint gave me the opportunity to find a part of myself that I did not know existed.

...I should have reached out earlier.
Still, I reached out out out of necessity, and I honestly accept that it was time to do so.
I had been vaguely thinking, "If I were to do mezzotint, I would..." My thoughts about mezzotint as a viewer and my ideas as a creator. I tried various methods I could think of, such as tools and printing methods that would make this possible. The freshness of using a technique for the first time, and the momentum that comes with a warrior's tremor when facing the printing plate to express my fantasy in a "picture," somehow led me to complete the work over a period of four years.

Even a baby can hold a conversation and resist at the age of four; a student who entered college four years ago has graduated. Now, for reasons of coronavirus, I have been holed up like a chrysalis, and after four years since the last exhibition of my new works, I have crawled out of the ground.