INK: The Color of Manitoga by KAZUMI TANAKA

2018 Artist Residency

Manitoga announced year five of our Artist Residency Program with the installation INK: The Color of Manitoga by Japanese artist Kazumi Tanaka who created natural inks from plant specimens she collected in Manitoga’s woodland garden. From the color inks, a series of paintings evolved. Tanaka employed her technical skills as a woodworker and antique furniture restorer to create a visually compelling Lab within the main House west gallery. There, she experimented and made natural inks with distilled water from Manitoga’s Quarry Pool. A large-scale map plotted her collecting points over the property’s seventy-five acres, and a journal recorded dates, times and the changing seasons. Visitors were invited into the Lab to experience the physical transformation from actual landscape to paintings.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Executive Director Allison Cross observed that “the project lies at the intersection of art and record-keeping, science and nature, ideas and handcraft – moving between the tangible and the conceptual as it engages Russel Wright’s legacy as a craftsman, designer, naturalist and visionary.” The work also evokes Wright’s relationship with Japan – a place that deeply influenced the creation of Manitoga and his later professional work. Tanaka was born in Osaka, Japan and her work often involves her childhood memories there. “When I first visited Manitoga, I was very taken with its quiet beauty, which reminded me of some of the most beautiful landscapes I experienced while growing up in Japan. The architecture has both translucent and tranquilizing qualities and is part of the landscape that Wright cultivated over many years from a broken land.” Tanaka adds that “Wright was one of the most popular American designers of his generation. He had so many ideas that were witty, practical and simple, yet many of his designs carry traits of Nature's complexity - for example, the color glazes he meticulously created for his American Modern and Iroquois Casual dinnerware. Inspired by his work, I will create color from the landscape created by him at Manitoga.”

ABOUT KAZUMI TANAKA

Kazumi Tanaka (b. 1962, Osaka, Japan) graduated from Osaka University in 1985 before relocating to New York in 1987, where she studied sculpture at the New York Studio School (1987–1990). Tanaka has exhibited at museums and galleries around the world. Solo exhibitions include presentations at the Kent Gallery between 1995 and 2003; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1993); Beacon Project Space (2002) and Hudson Beach Glass Gallery in Beacon, New York (2011). Group exhibitions include A Labor of Love, the New Museum of Contemporary Art (1996); The Quiet in the Land, at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art (1997); Model World at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2002); and Salem2Salem at Neues Museum, Salem, Germany (2012). Most recently, her work has been included in the group exhibition Silence, at Masters & Pelavin Gallery, New York (2012). Tanaka’s numerous residencies include the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine (1990); the United Society of Shakers, Sabbathday Lake, Maine (1996); in Salem, Germany (2010, 2012); Art Omi in New York (2013); and at the Citivella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy (2014). Tanaka is a 2017 Tiffany Foundation Grant recipient. She lives and works in Beacon, New York.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I was born in Osaka, Japan, in a house made of wood, stone, bamboo and paper. At age 25, I relocated to New York City in 1987. Employing both ancient and modern sculpting techniques, I create intricate and conceptually complex works that often involve childhood memories of Japan. My evocative work addresses the connection between the ephemeral nature of memory and the tangible mementos of history. It is a continuous search filtered through time and distance.

2018 ARTIST RESIDENCY HOST COMMITTEE

Lead Sponsors / David & Nanci McAlpin, Marilyn & Jim Simons

Sponsors / Tom Krizmanic, Gary & Laura Maurer

Supporters / Joe Chapman, Sidney Babcock & José Romeu, Allison Cross & Henry Nye, David Diamond & Karen Zukowski, Lyn & John Fischbach, Melissa Meyers & Wilbur Foster, Dick & Cathy Polich, Frederic C. Rich, Bill Roos & Scott Olsen, Katy Moss Warner. 

Artist Residency Program support also provided by Donald Albrecht, William Burback & Peter Hofmann, Jack & Cheryl Lenhart, the Ralph E. Ogden Foundation, the PCLB Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

INK: The Color of Manitoga was built upon the artist’s earlier work making watercolor drawings with tea, coffee, and other natural foods as well as her 2015 project Mother and Child Reunion at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia which involved experiments in indigo dye making – a traditional Japanese craft.

The LAB - Kazumi Tanaka, Installation Design; Jon Reichert, Furniture Maker; Randall Martin, Graphic design.

Photos: Mountain Laurel, Natural Ink Watercolor, Kazumi Tanaka, February 2018; Collected Specimen - Mountain Laurel, Kazumi Tanaka, February 2018; Natural Inks #12 - #16; Bloodroot Ink, April 2008.