Katsura Funakoshi bio

katsura funakoshi

Born in Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, 1951
Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan
Studied at Tokyo University of Art and Design (B.A., 1975) and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (M.A., 1977)

Meet a far-sighted person. He walks on narrow city streets but what he sees is the vast space between mountain peaks. Does he see a great bird spreading its wings, or a dark forest in the distance? Perhaps he's looking at that part of himself that lies farther away than anything else in this world. Indeed, it seems to me that one cannot see farther than inside onself.

Maybe that's why I sense a certain kinship between the eyes of desert nomads and fisherman and the eyes of philosophers. People with such eyes are rare, but they can be found in all walks of life. WIthout warning, they pass before me. I cannot call to them - I can only struggle to see them and hear their softly spoken words. To me, their gestures and their eyes somehow embody the humanity in all of us.

Some people say that in knowing oneself one may know the world....If I am able to see the world clearly by looking within myself, then I can make a statement concerning human existence through the depiction of a single person. Because I feel this way, I shall continue to work with the human form.

Selected Recent Exhibitions
2000	Der Verlorene Blick. Der Kopf in Skulptur, Zeichnung und Bild, Galerie Lelong, Zurich, Switzerland.
	Stadtische Museen Heilbronn, Germany
1999	Annely Juda FIne Art, London, ENgland
	Setagaya Art '99, Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo
	Image of Scultpure, Asahikawa Scultpure Museum, Tokyo
	France-Japon - L'Art Sans Frontiere, Bunkamura Gallery, Tokyo
1998	Human Figure, Asahikawa Sculpture Museum, Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo
	Bunkamura Gallery, Tokyo
	ACAF 6, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, Australia
1997	Ibara Municipal DENCHU Art Museum, Okayama
	5th NICAF Tokyo International Contemporary Art Festival, Tokyo International Exhibition Center
	On Paper '97, MIshimura Gallery, Tokyo
1996	Annely Juda Fine Art, London
	Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo
	Narcissism: Artists Reflect Themselves, California Center for the Arts Museum, Escondido
	Images of Women in Japanese Contemporary Art 1930s-90s. Shoto Museum of Art, Tokyo

Selected Public Collections
Asahikawa Sculpture Museum, Tokyo
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Canada
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Nogoya City Art Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura
St. Andrews Church, Tokyo
Zushi Catholic Church, Kanagawa