Okamoto Yoshiko Japanese, 1976

Okamoto Yoshiko (b. 1976) started as an illustration book artist and author in Yamaguchi prefecture, where she spent her young adult period depicting the beautiful four seasons and stories of nature found in her everyday life. Enrolling in arts and craft classes conducted by a Living National Treasure metalwork artist Yamamoto Akira (who also comes from Yamaguchi prefecture), shifted her direction to become a metalwork artist. After graduating college, she became a pupil of Mr. Yamamoto and learned his specialized technique of Hagiawase (heat welding method with metal forging) and Kiribame-Zogan (heat welding method with cutout inlay). Her working motif has remained the same throughout her artist’s career that is an endless story of nature woven by the four seasons in which she incorporates poetic and musical aspects. This is done by using gradation of many layers of colorful tones of metal.

 

Examples of her depicted scenes in her works include: shimmering water surfaces in the blowing wind, the leaves of trees shining through the sunlight, a pleasant breeze with the scent of spring, fireflies fly by the riverside in silence and daffodils blooming dignifiedly in the snow. She says that the completion of her works are not the outcome of the creation itself, but when it touches the hearts of those who view it. 

 

2023  Asia Week New York, US
2022  The 69th Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition, Japan
2021  "Metal Kogei Exhibition,” Kanazawa Yasue Gold Leaf Museum, Japan

The 68th Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition, Japan

2020 “Tansuio Award Exhibition: Contemporary Japanese Metalwork,” Sekido Museim of Art, Tokyo, Japan
The 67th Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition, Japan

 

Ise Foundation, Japan