Chikuunsai Tanabe, Japan

Connection

2020

Bamboo rattan

595 × 270 × 225 mm

A creative response to Connection by Brad Phillips

In 1977 everything was wicker. In my hippy aunt’s home, wicker rocking chair, wicker couch, wicker bed wicker balcony. In Supernatural British Columbia, canoes from trees older than God ferried the enemy in, and the vanquished out. A boat is a shape like a shoe; a coffin, a shape like a shoe. All built things are conveyances, All that conveys transports. To be transported is to descend, or to ascend, or to skate, laterally, across space and time. From my hippy aunt to the wet, cottony fog of the rainforest, shapes to hold and shapes to be held by.

Chikuunsai Tanabe IV learnt the craft of bamboo art from his father at a very young age. A graduate in sculpture at Tokyo Art University he continued his training at Beppu on Kyushu Island. His functional and contemporary works are part of international collections such as the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA), and the Guimet Museum (France). Faithful to tradition, he currently trains four young disciples.