HONDA Syoryu
(b. 1951)
Honda began his career studying bamboo basket making for flower arranging but the limitations of this centuries-old genre constrained his creativity. An innovator, he crafts dramatic, undulating sculpture that demonstrates his fascination with line, volume, and space. Seamless lengths of braided bamboo, dyed in warm shades of tobacco, gold, and bronze, resemble leather or metal. The artist is a master at tight ajiro plaiting, a technique he has adapted from generations of Japanese bamboo box makers.
For years his artistic career came to a halt because of the lack of interest in bamboo artists among Japanese collectors. To earn a living, he worked long hours, seven days a week, filling wholesale orders for simple
bamboo flower baskets. Recently, after many rejections from Japan's bamboo establishment, Honda has begun to achieve recognition in his home country and in the West.
A finalist for the Cotsen Bamboo Prize in 2000, 2002, and 2004, Honda's work is now part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Mint Museum, and the Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art.
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