SANTA FE, NM.- TAI Modern announces its new exhibition by Kawano Shoko. This is the artist’s first solo show with TAI Modern.

“The perfect marriage of traditional and contemporary; craftsmanship and sculpture; the past and the future,” is how 2002 Cotsen Bamboo Prize Judge, Bruce Pepich, director of the Racine Art Museum, described Kawano Shoko’s work. A master of open twill plaiting, Kawano creates intricate and elegant bamboo vessels. Seemingly one shape at first glance, the vessels subtly shift from one simple geometric shape to another.Suddenly a rectangular box becomes a globe; complicated and intricate details appear upon closer inspection.

Kawano’s masterful spacing of the bamboo lends itself to making his vessels appear both transparent and solid. Lacelike weavings carry a whole new vocabulary of shape, color, space and texture, and the emotion and temperament of the artist. Kawano does not use any measuring tools, instead each strip of perfectly placed bamboo is positioned by hand, relying only on his own senses.

Kawanowas born in 1957, in Oita City, Japan. After returning home after several attempts to enter Tokyo University of Arts, a friend introduced him to local bamboo artist Morigami Jin. Kawano was immediately fascinated with Morigami’s modern sculptural expression with bamboo, and began studying bamboo craft at Oita Prefectural Bamboo Craft Training and Support Center in 1989. Kawano’s breakthrough came in 2002, when he was awarded the Cotsen Bamboo Prize after submitting three newly created works using his signature open twill plaiting. His works have been consistently accepted into the prestigious annual Japan Traditional Craft Arts Exhibition. In 2006 and 2007, he was among seven students invited to study under former Living National Treasure, Hayakawa Shokosai V. Kawano’s work resides in the permanent collections of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte,North Carolina.