James Jack

I am working with natural pigments and an assortment of local materials in my new studio in the Setouchi Inland Sea as an artist in residence through the end of the year.  The region has been experiencing a swelling of contemporary art projects that are revitalizing small villages by utilizing empty spaces for art installations. Naoshima was the first example of how a small island could serve as a hub for contemporary art projects and was recently the topic of this article in the New York Times. The project I have been invited to participate in is on the larger island of Shodo and sponsored by Kagawa prefecture, one of the main sponsors of the Setouchi International Art Festival held last year. I will be working at the same site where I made the permanent installation work “A House of Language/土と共に” in 2010 as well as creating new video and works on paper. Please download the residency brochure HERE for more info on the details of this residency project.

I am developing a new project for Hokkaido that has been coordinated by the organizers of the exhibition Cycles of Memory (see flyer above). This project deals with the layers of earth and human consciousness, exposing the beauty of what lies beneath us. For this project soil will be drawn from a historical site in Hokkaido and redistributed on a mound near the exhibition venue in Tarumae. This movement of soil brings human daily labor into direct contact with the layers of soil that lie deep inside the earth, changing the color of a public site and exposing the history of a volcanic site. This project is tentatively titled Storied Landscape as people’s stories will be an integral part of the installation process, and the landscape itself will reveal people’s stories of the region and its history. I will hold workshops with the local community on July 20 and July 23rd and a public lecture is scheduled for July 24th at the Tomakomai Museum.

I am organizing a visit by socially engaged artist Toshiaki Tomita at the end of this month on O‘ahu. He will be collaborating with local groups, schools and individuals during his stay in Honolulu to make new artworks that will be part of his latest magazine project titled “Living in Story.” We are planning for a number of walks including a night stick walk done with candles, drawing on plates that will be used in a performance with food and sharing family photo albums with discussion of the tragedies in Tohoku. He is being graciously hosted by the Intersections Visiting Artist program at the University of Hawai‘i and will be in Honolulu for the last week of April before going to big island for the first week of May. He will give a public lecture on Thursday, April 28th at the UH Mānoa Art Building Room 101 from 12 noon to 1pm. Please come by or contact me if you would like to get involved in this creative project!

I’m doing an art residency project in Beijing for most of the month of August at the Ku Art Center. It has been refreshing to spread out and make new art works in a studio that’s about twelve times larger than my space in Tokyo. Although the space is raw it has inspired a lot of new ideas for me as I am working on new drawings and photographic works. I have been re-immersing myself in the world of ink and paper (refreshing!) and paying close attention to emptiness. Studio view 1:

I’m working on a new series of grass paintings that will become large scrolls hanging from the ceiling of a former silk factory for the 15th Kiryu Saien Exhibit in Gunma opening the first week of October. The simple shape of a blade of grass is taking on more and more meaning as I spend time “calligraphing” its shape and documenting the blades with a camera. Here is a sample of the works hanging in the studio:

I was most impressed by a studio visit with Jiang Guandong, an artist who is also a Taoist teacher. After a delicious bijou filled evening we exchanged studio visits and transcended our lack of a shared language with a nearly pure visual communication. Experiences such as these have perked my desire to tackle Mandarin when I get back to Tokyo.

How does an encounter with the royal family affect one’s life? For me it re-affirms the simple activities that I engage in everyday. Somehow it seems to be part of a larger fate that was set up for me, but this is something I’m not exactly sure how to put into words.

There are times when things fall into place and everything seems calculated by a larger unknown presence, I don’t dare to call it anything other than “unknown,” so I’ll leave it at that. Life is just a manner of finding where I fit in the sprockets of this fate, a challenging situation but nothing other than the essence of truly being alive.

In conjunction with their highnesses’ recent visit to Oahu KGMB did a TV series about the Royal family’s historical ties with Hawaii. The video features interviews with me and other scholars who are contributing to strengthening cross-cultural bonds across the Pacific. Check out the full video from KGMB here (Section two includes shots of my studio at Geidai in Ueno.)

This is my current works blog that will provide updates on my art work. Welcome to James Jack.org current works blog.