woven sculptures + nihonga painting by 92yo Japanese Canadian artist Setsuko Piroche @ Nikkei Museum

“WOVEN: Setsuko Piroche's Wonderland”
woven doll sculptures, nihonga paintings and paperworks at The Nikkei National Museum
March 16 to September 28, 2024
The Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre
6688 Southoaks Crescent
Burnaby, BC
open Tuesday to Sunday from Noon to 5pm
curated by Makiko Hara and Sherri Shinobu Kajiwara
Welcome to the unique world of Setsuko Piroche (née Setsuko Hane), a colourful and diverse cross-cultural artist whose career spans more than 70 years. Setsuko was born in Asakusa, Tokyo in 1932 and immigrated to Canada's West Coast in the late 1960s. She has lived in British Columbia (BC), currently in Pitt Meadows, for over half a century.
In post-war Tokyo at the age of 14, Setsuko studied nihonga (Japanese style pigment method) painting as a live-in student of Setsu Asakura, the most well-known female theatre set designer in Japan. After a decade of exhibiting nihonga as a member of the Shinseisaku-Bijutsu-Kyokai, a famous art association, Setsuko left the closed world of Japanese painting and departed for adventures to India and Australia. It was a time of discovery and awakening. There she encountered global cultures and her life partner.
In 1967 Setsuko moved to BC with Pierre Piroche, a French adventurer. Pierre would become the owner of a specialized global plant nursery, Pierre Piroche plants, operating in BC and China for over 30 years.
In the 1970s Setsuko became a member of a female artist community at Handcraft House in North Vancouver. There she learned and taught weaving techniques. This inspired her numerous creative experimental expressions, including several interactive textile installations that allowed viewers to touch and enter into the works. Her artworks were applauded in Canadian media as part of a new feminist art movement that bridged the craft movement and contemporary art. In 1972 she won the best prize at the BC Craft Exhibition at the Simon Fraser University Gallery. She has been included in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Japan and Europe.
This exhibition brings together over 40 pieces of her unique artistic worldview, including three-dimensional textile dolls and sculptures that were central to the Arts and Crafts Movement in the 1970s, suspended soft woven sculptures, early nihonga paintings, print works, and illustrated children's books published in both Japanese and English.
Although the key word WOVEN in the title primarily refers to Setsuko's unique approach to textiles and speaks literally to much of the works in this exhibition, it also describes her talent for connecting and threading many people and cultures together. Her artistic creativity, diverse friendships, and reciprocal admiration with her contemporaries are woven together into the large beautiful tapestry of Setsuko's life.
This exhibition also unpacks a little known yet remarkable piece of history between three artists, Bill Reid, Bikky Sunazawa, and Setsuko Piroche, rooted in the early 1980s. A special section showing personal artworks gifted between these artists reveals an endearing cross-Pacific creative exchange and friendship.
For more information, please visit ...
centre.nikkeip...

[@alteredego999]

What a wonderful tribute to an artist whose artistic life spans 70 years. You don't get much of that. And Thank You for highlighting the work of this artist. It proves that our creative life only ends when we do. Wonderful, just wonderful.

[@PaulpresentsART]

Thanks for watching the video and I really appreciate your comment. Keep well and hope the next video will be equally interesting.

[@nikkeimuse]

Thank you for visiting and making a video of the exhibit!

[@PaulpresentsART]

It was my pleasure.