Gallery Chigusa & Junko

Welcome to our site

 

We are delighted to invite you to visit our exhibition. If, during the viewing, each work provokes feelings, even in the absence of an explanation, that is good.  We think, however, that if you interested in the story of the artists and their journey, you may be prompted to consider another point of view.

 

Chigusa Kuraishi has always had a passion for art and design, beginning when young, to conceive and create. She transferred to Italy, a centre for the history of art and cultural riches, and has lived in Perugia for more than 20 years.

 

In October 2012 Junko Ito came to study Italian at the Università per Stranieri.  Junko, from the age of three, has pursued the art of calligraphy. She met Chigusa by chance, but this meeting was a decisive moment for both artists who started to work collaboratively combining the talents of both. Whilst respecting each other’s individual journey, they began to share creative impulses and projects, culminating in the joint new works.

 

Through their dialogue, the comparison of works, the exchange of ideas and commonality of intellectual and spiritual resources, were born the works of “Pittura e Calligrafia”,   together changing the world of artistic expression.

 

In May and June 2013 they organised a show entitled “Immagini e Parole” their first show together.  It was a great success, acclaimed by Italian and foreign visitors alike.  Word of their work reached overseas, to the USA, Denmarki  Japan amongst others with a particular emotion felt by some viewers, generated not only by the contemplation of shape and colour but the use of empty spaces, displayed in white, typical of the particular Japanese aesthetic sense.

 

In addition, Chigusa and Junko wish to convey the sensitive issue relevant to the present day: the difficulties that pervade society in Italy and Japan, proposing and articulating such ideas with a sense of duty, holding in focus (having in mind) their contribution as artists searching into the meaning of life.  Their desire, when they started together, was to resonate this idea in the hearts of people and thus communicate “thoughts and ideas”, ideally involving the inner consciousness of the viewers.

 

And now, living proof of their idea, the new exhibition, entitled “ IKIRU”, “To live” referring to  “Vital breath”, that is spiritual energy. If Junko had not come to study at Perugia this collaboration would never have flowered nor the consequent artistic work. It makes one think about such strange coincidences, the unexplainable events flowing from life and encounters.

 

We thank, from the bottom of our hearts, all the people who have helped us, especially Haruyuki Kuramoto, for his patience and maintaining this website. We also thank Hori Yasuo who  donated his poem “Kaze, Vento” and Dr Hori, a famous scholar of esperanto,  has written and transmitted  timely news about the earthquake in 2011 which  struck Tohoku in the northwest of Japan and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima (with regular updates of the victims’ situation over  the worldwide web of esperantists). We thank all the translators of the poem of Hori, the teachers and students of the “Università per stranieri” by whose efforts this story is presented in English, French, Serbian, German, Finnish, Swedish, Hebrew and Italian with more to come.

 

The numbers on the works of art refer to the last three exhibitions.

 

Thanks to all the collaborators and visitors to the exhibitions, and the participants in the related workshop “Pittura e Calligrafia”

 

Finally, thanks to all those who have read this story.

                                                                                        Toshihiko Itou