View Lacquer and bamboo masterworks by Ikeda Iwao
Ikeda Iwao Artist Statement
The Life of Bamboo, the Spirit of Urushi (Lacquer)
I create works using bamboo and urushi (Japanese lacquer) as materials.
Bamboo embodies an indomitable life force. During its growth period, it can grow more than one meter in a single day, quickly towering overhead. Beneath the surface, its roots spread like an intricate web, with such strength that they can even displace rocks in their path.
The highest quality urushi sap emanates a vital essence from its glossy surface. The profound, bottomless black lacquer and the quietly burning vermilion hues are complemented and contrasted with gold and silver through the maki-e technique. The beautiful, bare surface of bamboo intertwines harmoniously with these elements. Though my creations are anchored in Japanese heritage, I place great emphasis on originality.
My recent two-dimensional works are composed using fragments that fell off during the creation of my three-dimensional pieces. These pieces are thoughtfully applied on handcrafted washi paper and gampi-shi – a type of traditional paper dating back to the Edo period, more than 200 years ago – which once served as haku-uchi-gami for the gold foil beating.
Bamboo serves as a remarkably versatile expressive material – it can be split, shaved, cracked, cut, crushed, assembled and bent – transforming its appearance freely in response to the artist’s touch. I receive vital energy from bamboo every day and my days are filled with excitement about the interplay between medium and expression.
Ikeda Iwao
Biography
1940 Born in Tokyo, the eldest son of Ikeda Hyoua II, the bamboo master
1950 Began studying bamboo art under his father
1956 Began studying tea ceremony under Dohi Kozen, tea master of Edo-Senke
1960-84 Studied urushi lacquer under Akaji Yusai (Living National Treasure in urushi lacquer work)
1963 Graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, majoring in urushi lacquer work
1965 Studied urushi lacquer work under Matsuda Gonroku (Living National Treasure in urushi lacquer work)
1968 Began studying tea ceremony under Suzuki Souho, tea master of Ura-Senke
Selected Solo Exhibitions and Prizes
1988 New Art of Chaki: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Kandori Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1991 Art of Vase: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Kandori Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2002 Ikeda Iwao’s Shitsugei, Aso-Bijutsu, Tokyo, Japan
2006 Ikeda Iwao, Chikuryudo, Tobi Art Fair, Tokyo, Japan
Received the Special Grand Prix of Musée Tomo, Tokyo, Japan for his work at the exhibition Contemporary Ceramics for Tea Ceremony
2008 Urushi, New Experience, Ikeda Iwao 1960-2008, Musée Tomo, Tokyo, Japan
2013 Ikeda Iwao: Bamboo and Lacquer, Asian Art Museum, National Museums in Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2014 Ikeda Iwao: Bamboo and Lacquer, Museum of Lacquer Art, Münster, Germany
Bamboo and Laquer. Works of Iwao Ikeda, Manggha (The Museum of Japanese art and Technology), Kraków, Poland
2015 Ikeda Iwao, Kuroda Toen, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Solo Exhibition, Kandori, Tokyo, Japan
The Life of Bamboo – The Spirit of Urushi, Erik Thomsen Gallery, Koichi Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts, New York, USA
2018 Iwao Ikeda The Life of Bamboo - The Spirit of Urushi Kikkouchiku, Nakacho Konishi Arts, Tokyo, Japan
Ikeda Iwao, Estrangement of Awareness, Shumoku Gallery, Nagoya, Tokyo, Japan
2023 Fragments of Thought, Atsuhiko Suematsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Selected Group Exhibitions
2002 The New Way of Tea, The Japan Society Gallery, New York, USA
2008 New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters, Japan Society Gallery, New York, USA
2010 About the Tea Ceremony — A Viewpoint on Contemporary Kogei (Studio Crafts), Crafts Gallery, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
2011 Kissako, Kuroda Toen, Tokyo, Japan
2012 New Footing: Eleven Approaches to Contemporary Crafts, Crafts Gallery, The National Museum of Modern Act, Tokyo, Japan
Inheritance and Progression of Bamboo Art, Oita Prefectural Art Centre, Oita, Japan
The Tea Ceremony Today — Utility and Form, Musée Tomo, Tokyo, Japan
Urushi and Clay: Abe Anjin x Ikeda Iwao, Fukuoka HEIS Gallery, Fukuoka, Japan
2013 21st Century Exhibition, Tokyo Art Club, Tokyo, Japan
2014 Beauty of KOGEI: Art and Crafts in Japan, Japan Creative Centre, Singapore
2015 Sueharu Fukami and Iwao Ikeda, Nakacho Konishi Arts, Osaka, Japan
2018 Iwao Ikeda and Yukio Nakagawa, Art Fair Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Public Collections
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
The Museum of Japanese Art and Technology, Kraków, Poland
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Ikeda Iwao – A Unique Talent in Bamboo and Urushi Art
Moroyama Masanori (Craft Art Historian, Former Chief Curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)
Ikeda Iwao is the eldest son of Ikeda Hyoua II, who was known for his research into and recreation of classical masterpieces of bamboo baskets, particularly those in traditional Chinese style, as well as for creating wabi-style baskets, with support from the great tea master Masuda Donn’ou (Takashi) and other aesthetes. From an early age, Ikeda was trained in bamboo craftsmanship, studied tea ceremony and painting and later studied urushi (lacquer) art at the lacquer department of Tokyo University of the Arts. There, he furthered his research by closely examining masterpieces of maki-e (gold and silver lacquerware) and other treasures in the collections of Tokyo National Museum and of private individuals. He also apprenticed under Akaji Yusai (a Living National Treasure in the art of kyushitsu [lacquer application]), who represented Tokyo-style thin lacquer work from the Watanabe Kisaburo lineage, learning the techniques of nuritate (a finish without a final coat and polishing) and harinuki (lightweight, hollow lacquer work with a removed core). Additionally, for many years, he received instruction about the historical aspects of maki-e under Matsuda Gonroku, another Living National Treasure and a leading figure in modern lacquer art.
However, after experiencing a sense of incongruity between his technical skills and personal artistic expression, Ikeda made a decisive shift, abandoning his family’s business of basket weaving. He distanced himself from classical studies and the creations that accompany famous tea utensils. He shifted toward creating original, conceptual work as a lacquer artist who also had an intimate and sympathetic understanding of the characteristics of bamboo as a material.
In 1988, Ikeda participated in the Kandori Gallery exhibition New Art of Chaki: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow alongside Raku Kichizaemon XV (currently Jikinyu) and Kawase Shinobu, a ceramicist and Nagano Retsu, who made tea ceremony kettles. The exhibition and the series of subsequent exhibitions created a sensation; Ikeda later held a solo exhibition Ikeda Iwao: Art of Vase in 1991, followed by others in 1994, 1997 (water containers) and 2001(tea utensils), each showcasing his innovative approach to bamboo and lacquer. These works featured bold carving and splitting techniques that utilized the characteristics and unique shape of bamboo, combined with black and vermilion lacquer, often enhanced with gold and silver maki-e, resulting in strikingly original forms inspired by his unique perception of nature. Thus, demonstrating his determination to shake off the constraints of classical tea aesthetics and traditional lacquer techniques, he seemed to anticipate a move toward fine art that reflected contemporary sensibilities with innovative concepts and a compelling presence.
Around 2005, a radical lacquer work by Ikeda appeared, featuring nested bamboo tubes with cuts and breaks rendered by a hatchet on the upper part, finished with black and vermillion lacquer and with gold and silver maki-e. The breaks captured the instant of fracture, vividly conveying the toughness of bamboo and the vitality of lacquer. The following year, he intensified this approach by breaking the tubes further with a wooden mallet, resulting in an expansion of finer breaks. Without Ikeda’s conscious intention, these tubes took organic forms, resembling blooming chrysanthemums when viewed from above. Furthermore, by carving bamboo, sawing bamboo tubes and applying hatchet blades to spread breaks and splits, these large bamboo fragments maintained their curved forms while displaying the beauty of transformation.
In autumn 2008, the Japan Society Gallery in New York presented the landmark exhibition New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters (curated by Joe Earle), finally bringing to Japan an awareness of the international emergence of contemporary bamboo art. The exhibition featured twenty-three artists. Among them, two outstanding artists were highlighted — Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, known for his dynamic three-dimensional bamboo sculptures and Ikeda Iwao. Ikeda exhibited three lacquered bamboo tube works from 2005- 2006 and a large-scale work titled Destruction and Creation (H:100.0 cm, W:180.0 cm), an interlocking bamboo tube structure extended at an angle, reminiscent of a dragon’s head with its tongue extended.
Immediately after the opening of the New Bamboo exhibition, Musée Tomo held Ikeda’s solo exhibition Urushi, a New Experience: Ikeda Iwao 1960-2008 which became the most important and key turning point for him. For those who had recognized Ikeda as a lacquer artist from the 1988 New Art of Chaki exhibition and subsequent series of solo exhibitions, this was a retrospective exhibition that revealed the full scope of Ikeda, who had still been known only to connoisseurs. It showcased tea utensils with masterful black and vermilion lacquer and gold maki-e, tube flower vases with cuts and works from around 2005-6 with nested tubes displaying stirring breaks and fragments. These created a powerful impression with their unique beauty and avant-garde appearance. Two large-scale works were particularly impactful. One, Untitled, Black with Gold, featured small-diameter tubes extending in sequence from the ends of a large tube (16.0 cm in diameter with two nodes) with cracks, adorned with bands of gold maki-e on black lacquer. The sense of life extending far beyond the length of an outstretched arm (W: 267.0 cm) was overwhelming. Another, Untitled, Black with Red and Gold consisted of thick bamboo tubes with black lacquer, each with bends and cracks, arranged to form an outer circumference. Inside, similarly lacquered tubes (red outside, black inside) decorated with gold maki-e bands formed a circle and, in the centre, a tall, nested tube with cracks stood erect. Installed on the darkened floor of the gallery, it seemed to vibrantly convey the raw energy of lacquer and I still recall it vividly. These works were truly fine art that had completely escaped the category (constraints) of craft, projecting a dignified and powerful presence.
In recent years, Ikeda Iwao has become increasingly devoted to his creative credo ‘the life of bamboo, the spirit of urushi’, producing forms that synergize his thoughts with the ‘life spirit’ of bamboo and the vitality of lacquer, in order to freely express the ‘will’ of the bamboo material. This has led to increasingly remarkable developments. In his 2018 solo exhibition Estrangement of Awareness, it was as if a part of the consciousness of bamboo and lacquer were peeling away; fragments of black and vermilion lacquer and gold and silver maki-e were stripped away from tubes, squares, compressed or bent pieces and leaving seemingly unique bamboo tube segments that revealed the bamboo’s growth, which had been sawed and struck with a hatchet. The exposed bamboo surface was truly a living form, and there one seemed to find the essence of Ikeda’s creative work that purely reflects his own aesthetic. In his 2019 solo exhibition Shingu, Ikeda created works by roughly splitting bamboo with nodes using a hatchet, resulting in half-split forms, carved shapes and fragments with peaks. The inner surfaces facing front were lacquered in black or vermilion, while the raw cut ends were sprinkled with gold powder. Rather than making forms that consciously emphasize function or beauty, they project an intensely spiritual, solemn vitality. Shingu is Ikeda’s coined term that presents his lacquer work as yorishiro (objects capable of attracting spirits). It is as though ‘the life of bamboo, the spirit of urushi’ has transformed into a spiritual existence without form.
Ikeda’s 2023 solo exhibition Fragments of Thought brought together pieces of bamboo that had been split with a hatchet, shaved down, lacquered and smashed with a wooden mallet — fragments that had fallen away during previous creative processes, which Ikeda had kept close at hand as if cherishing them. They may have been preserved as the remaining parts of the consciousness that produced his creations. Without focusing on concepts of form or practicality, the materials were composed by bringing together an awareness of existence, with ‘fragments’ remaining just as they had been formed. Rather than being mere remnants of creation, Ikeda likely recognized a consciousness of expression that again testified to a new ‘the life of bamboo, the spirit of urushi’. He mounted these onto flat surfaces of glossy ganpi-shi – traditional Japanese paper previously utilized in the gold leaf beating process – which he had kept for thirty years, producing them as mixed media compositions.
Throughout his career, Ikeda Iwao has distanced himself from traditional craft elements such as deference to history, classical aesthetics, technique and function that had formed part of his foundational training. Instead, he has engaged with art directly and purely, pursuing his own fine art by simply using the consciousness of creation through the characteristics of bamboo material and lacquer. Even in his mid-80s, he remains deeply committed to creation and I anticipate with pleasure that perhaps new lacquer works might appear, appreciating the beautiful life of unadorned, bare bamboo, like Sen no Rikyū’s wabi bamboo flower vases.
View Lacquer and bamboo masterworks by Ikeda Iwao