Perfect World
Full colour display of large scale paintings from Kara series exhibited at Christopher Cutts Gallery in 2010 with the title, Perfect World. Daisuke Takeya and Contemporary Poetic Sentiment, a literature contribution by Fumio Nanjo, the former director of Mori Art Museum in Japan.
The paintings have been exhibited internationally at the Japan Foundation, Toronto, the Embassy of Japan in Canada, the Pouch Cove Foundation, Galerie St Laurent + Hill, Roppongi Hills Club, Seoul Auction, Shibunkaku Gallery, James Baird Gallery, Yamagata Biennale, Yamagata Retrokan, Nagoya TV Tower Cloud Museum and Mori Art Center.
Published by and available from Christopher Cutts Gallery.
ISBN: 978-1-927376-04-1
Eyes of a Child
‘Children’s artwork – it has two meanings. Artwork created by children and artwork depicting children.’
This book is self-directed/published as part of the artist’s project, “eyes of a child,” which is to investigate creativity of children and aesthetics of their artwork as an art teacher/artist by creating reproductions of works produced by children tracing the process of their art making in order to understand and clarify the drawing style of each student as well as the feelings that he or she intended to express (from the eyes of a child), and then by drawing portraits of each student (into the eyes of a child). The project was developed over five years of teaching elementary school art classes at La Citadelle International Academy of Arts and Science in Toronto.
Eighty-eight colour pages in English and Japanese featuring a simultaneous showing of oil and pencil portraits of students and reproductions of works produced by these students during the class, as well as text by Goro Suzuki, professor emeritus at Atomi University, Japan, dialogue with Atsuko Harada, who was the artist’s grade one homeroom teacher and ex-principal of Nagae Public Elementary School, and dialogue with third graders who were the students of the artist.
The book is designed by Japanese package designer Akiyo Kamijyo and Canadian graphic designer Robert Moreau to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Japan Canada diplomatic relations.
“eyes of a child” project has been exhibited in various venues around the globe, including Pouch Cove Foundation, Newfoundland, Canada (2008), Galeria Gegona Malone, Madrid, Spain (2007), Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2006), Wagner Collage Art Gallery, New York, U.S.A. (2005), Galeria Punto Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, Japan (2005), Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan (2005), Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art Annex, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan (2005), Prince Takamado Gallery at the Canadian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan (2004).
Published by Ikkei Shobo Press
ISBN: 4-87074-137-7
22.5 x 30 cm, 88 pages, colour offset, 2008
Edition of 1,000
$40 (CAD).
Available from the artist, Art Metropole, and Christopher Cutts Gallery.
Ikkei Shobo Press is a publishing company based in Tokyo specializing in books in education whose authors are often elementary school teachers at work. It was founded by Kayako Saito, a daughter of Kihaku Saito, a legendary teacher in education in Japan.
THE GOOD LANDS By Victoria Dickenson
ISBN: 978-1-77327-024-1
Fifty years ago, Canada celebrated its hundredth anniversary of Confederation. At Expo 67, in communities across the country, we celebrated our coming of age as a modern, bilingual, bicultural nation—a place where anyone from any culture could thrive.
But beneath the applause and the cheerful music was a darker note. In his public address at the festivities, Chief Dan George lamented what Canada’s centennial did not celebrate: the colonization and marginalization of Indigenous peoples who lived on these “good lands.” Now in the year of Canada’s 150th birthday, we honour a new understanding of our past. We have begun—at long last—to share in a process of national reconciliation and to come together to reimagine our contribution to a global future.
Artists give form and meaning to both the land and the invisible landscape of the spirit, both the past and the future. The works of Canada’s artists—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, historical and contemporary—invite us to see our country and our place within it with new eyes. This book celebrates their visions, as well as the good lands we have shared and shaped for millennia that, in turn, have shaped us.
My painting ‘Stoney Reserve’ is included in this book on page 88.
ArtSync Book Project: CONVERSATIONS 2011-2012. ART SYNC Canadian Art Connections, 2012
My installation ‘GOD Loves Japan’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto is included in this book.