Art Jam – Pacific Rim Connection
“Opening Gala Evening” – July 09, 2010 at the Ladysmith Waterfront Gallery
Ladysmith Waterfront Gallery
Standing in front of their Art is from left to right:
Luke Marston(Ladysmith), Suzuki Toshiithi (Japan), Japanese Samisen Players (Japan), Sugimoto Hiroshi (Japan) John Marston (Ladysmith) and Jason Grondin (Victoria).
Art Jam continues at the Gallery until July 23rd, 2010.
Luke Marston is a Coast Salish artist from Ladysmith who, like his brother John, trained with Simon Charlie and at the Royal British Columbia Museum carving shed. Represented by Victoria’s Alcheringa Gallery, his work has been exhibited in Japan at the Canadian Embassy, in America and at Vancouver’s Inuit Gallery. Luke was an integral part of Art Jam 2008 in Ome, Japan where his skills as singer and dancer drew acclaim. Since returning he has created a pole for the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and a bent-wood box now travelling the country as the focal point of the reconciliation commission addressing the wrongs of the residential schools in Canada. Recently, Luke carved panels for the First Nations House at the University of Victoria.
Suzuki Toshiichi received his Master’s Degree in pottery from the Graduate School of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1990. In addition to a prestigious exhibiting career in Japan, his pottery is included in the permanent collection of the Yixing Ceramics Museum in China. Presently he is an instructor at Meisei University, Joshibi University of Art and Design and Yokohama College of Art and Design. Though youthful and ebullient himself, Suzuki’s ceramics are typically created in a deceptively modest kohiki style. Simple forms and neutral monochrome glazes are subtly crafted to enhance the look of food. Their wabi-sabi presence is constantly at play in the pleasure of using this elegant ware.
Kineya is a duo of world-class performers on the three-stringed Japanese instrument called the samisen. Kineya is coming to Canada to perform Japanese ballads of the type called nagauta.
Sugimoto Hiroshi received a master’s degree in painting from the Tokyo National University of the Arts in 1977. He is noted for his paintings on sliding doors, walls and ceilings in significant buildings such as the Izumo Shrine (Osaka), Seigan-ji and Jizo-In Temples (Tokyo). His smaller paintings on fans, panels and folding screens involve ink, nihonga colours, gold leaf, metallic powders and collage. Sugimoto first exhibited at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 2004 and has returned annually to further his concept of Art Jam, a cultural exchange among artists. It is no exaggeration to say that Sugimoto is the guiding force behind the Art Jam movement.
John Marston began carving at the age of eight under the guidance of his parents and master Coast Salish carver Simon Charlie. With his brother Luke he worked in the carving shed at the Royal British Columbia Museum for a number of years. In 2005 Marston accompanied Elaine Monds of Alcheringa Gallery to Papua New Guinea where he was profoundly influenced by the carvers still working in the hunter-gatherer tradition and was the subject of a widely-broadcast film, Thunderbird and Crocodile. In 2008 Marston, with his brother Luke, was invited to take part in Art Jam 2008 in Ome, Japan where they lived with Buddhist carver Ito Kojiro for three weeks. Their work was part of an exhibition in the Prince Takamado Gallery of the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo. Two half-hour films documenting their participation in this event were made by a Canadian film crew. Marston was recently honoured with a British Columbia Creative Achievement Award for Aboriginal Art.
Jason Grondin paints pure abstracts which relate to the patterns of energy that make up our universe. In 2009 Grondin participated in the annual art event Ome Art Jam, showing in the Ome City Art Museum in, Japan. His style of painting was the subject of his workshop “Spontaneity Art: Drip Paintings and Watercolour” which he presented when he attended. Grondin was one of the founders of the Collective Works Gallery, a non-profit artist-run gallery in Victoria, in 2008. Since 2009 he has been the curator of that gallery.
