July 28, 2010

Mari Ishikawa

(1964, Kyoto, Japan)

In the Shadow of a Tree...

“In spring I like dawn best when the dark mountain range gradually grows visible. There rests there, purple violet and nacreous, a long-drawn out wisp of cloud. In summer I prefer night ...”

With these celebrated sentences the “Pillow Book” of Sei Shonagon begins. Written about 1000, it is a classic of literature in the land of the rising sun. Every Japanese, even today, could recite from memory those words of the legendary poetess’. And thus they have always accompanied and influenced Mari Ishikawa in her creative development.

Born in Kyoto in 1964, Mari Ishikawa studied art and then worked as an art teacher and designer before deciding on further training as a goldsmith at the prestigious Hiko Mizuno College in Tokyo. From 1994 until 2000 she continued her studies at the Munich Art Academy as a pupil of Professor Otto Künzli’s; in 1999 she was master student.

Her works centre on the idea of ties, fo relationships – a form of networking things which is basic to the Japanese view of nature and religious world-view. Mari Ishikawa’s interpretation is, therefore, distilled into her art in a specific form of linkage, for example, of paper (kozo) and silver, in the construction of cloud-like configurations and interwoven structures, enmeshed in poetically delicate, complex visions inspired by the rhythm of the seasons.

Photography is her point of departure, serving her artistic research in observation and sensitising her to the proecessual passages in nature. Mari Ishikawa’s works illustrate deep roots in japanese tradition and rituals, revealing at once a transformation and metamorphosis of their content in a contemporary jewellery aesthetic.
Mari Ishikawa is an outstanding exponent of international avant-garde jewellery design. Her work is owned by the most important collections and museums in this field.


Ellen Maurer-Zilioli (Gallery Maurer Zilioli)

Website van Mari Ishikawa

Website van Gallery Lilly Zeligman

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