Katsura Funakoshi
Katsura Funakoshi is a sculptor working predominantly in camphor wood and marble, generating figurative carvings that render the physical bond between mind and body. Inspired by Japanese temple portrait sculptures from the Kamakura period and his father’s career as a sculptor, his works are a poignant combination of fantasy and realism. His figures are most often molded from the waist up, with absurd limbs or branches projecting from their bodies. Funakoshi yearns to illustrate the tension of human existence that is at once emotionally complex and physically demanding. Maintaining the imperfections of his materials, the artist addresses the “moment between the material and the image,” summoning a reality that is simultaneously at odds with nature and a product of it.
Funakoshi has exhibited extensively in Japanese institutions including Tokyo Metropolitan Teiein Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, and Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, among many others. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, San Francisco Museum of Art, California, Akron Art Museum, Ohio, and Seattle Art Museum, Washington. He participated in the 2000 Shanghai Biennale and dOCUMENTA IX in 1992. He represented Japan at both the Sao Paulo …
Katsura Funakoshi is a sculptor working predominantly in camphor wood and marble, generating figurative carvings that render the physical bond between mind and body. Inspired by Japanese temple portrait sculptures from the Kamakura period and his father’s career as a sculptor, his works are a poignant combination of fantasy and realism. His figures are most often molded from the waist up, with absurd limbs or branches projecting from their bodies. Funakoshi yearns to illustrate the tension of human existence that is at once emotionally complex and physically demanding. Maintaining the imperfections of his materials, the artist addresses the “moment between the material and the image,” summoning a reality that is simultaneously at odds with nature and a product of it.
Funakoshi has exhibited extensively in Japanese institutions including Tokyo Metropolitan Teiein Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, and Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, among many others. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, San Francisco Museum of Art, California, Akron Art Museum, Ohio, and Seattle Art Museum, Washington. He participated in the 2000 Shanghai Biennale and dOCUMENTA IX in 1992. He represented Japan at both the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1989 and the Venice Biennale in 1988.
Asahikawa Sculpture Museum, Japan
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan
Kirishima Open-art Museum, Kagoshima, Japan
McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Canada
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Nagoya City Art Museum, Japan
Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo, Japan
The Museum of Art, Kochi, India
Wiesbaden Museum, Germany
Van Doren Waxter, New York, New York
Annely Juda Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
