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Garrison Art Center Opens 2007 With Brazilian Artists' Collective Ceramics Exhibition
Fire, Smoke And Ash, Feel The Brazilian Heat
Take the "Hip-Trip" to Garrison Art Center for the New York premiere showing of ceramics by Brazilian artists Mieko Ukeseki, Mario Konishi, and Alberto Cidraes. These artists are the original founders of a ceramics collective from Cunha, Brazil. Their efforts gave rise to a ceramics movement that, over the past 30 years has resulted in 15 studios operated by 20 fellow ceramic artists comprising the Cunha Ceramists Association. Their pieces are specially fired using a kiln process called "noborigama" which originated in the 17th century.
Their exquisite work will be exhibited for sale with a grand opening reception on January 20th, 2007 from 5-8pm. The exhibit will run through February 17th. Join in the spirit and be treated to tasty caipirinhas & the beat of Brazilian music.
In the early 1970s Mieko and Alberto and their spouses, while living in Koishiwara, Japan, developed the idea of creating a ceramics collective in Brazil. In 1975, these two couples (one Japanese, the other Portuguese) together with other artists launched a ceramics studio in Cunha, an agricultural, pastoral, mountain town, located between the two cites of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, about 30 miles from the famous colonial, coastal town of Parati.
The original ceramics studio was set up in an old slaughterhouse made available by the local government. Mieko, Mario, and Alberto use the wood-burning, multi-chambered, kiln process called "noborigama" which originated in China and then was used in Japan beginning in the early 17th Century.
Mieko Ukeseki, a nurse by training, was born in Japan where she began to make ceramics in 1972. She arrived in Brazil in 1975 and has participated in numerous exhibitions in Brazil and internationally. She has won various prizes for her sculptures.
Mário Konishi was born in Parana, Brazil and graduated from the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of São Paulo and moved to Cunha in 1984. Mário and Mieko married and he began to create ceramics, participating in many exhibitions in Brazil.
Mieko and Mário like to say that "the kiln is the co-author of our pieces" because all of the pieces are unique and independent of the artists. The fire, the ash, and the smoke, each have their own influence on the work.
Alberto Cidrães is an architect who in the 1970s moved from Portugal to Japan to study wood architecture and fell in love with ceramics. After emigrating to Brazil in 1975, he became an established ceramics sculptor. In 1987, he was invited to start the Ceramics Department of ARCO Art School in Lisbon where he taught until returning to Japan in 1990 on a Japan Foundation Fellowship. In Japan he helped create the Kanazawa International Design Institute, an affiliate of the New York Parsons School of Design. Alberto returned to Brazil in 2002 where he continues to work in his ceramics studio. Regarding the creative process of his ceramic art, Alberto says "Your dreams take shape and materialize in front of you. Your ghosts become real and can be preserved as genies in the clay bottles."
For all information contact: Garrison Art Center, 424-3960 or visit
www.garrisonartcenter.org
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