Meditations
Solo exhibition
6 March - 20 April 2024
Corvi-Mora 1a Kempsford Road (off Wincott Street), London, SE11 4NU
Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 - 18:00
A conversation with Bridget Harvey
We spoke about my approach to making, where it stems from and how it manifests now in a measured approach engaging deeply with the materials I work with and seeking certain qualities from it. We also touch on my practice of kintsugi, how it sits in my practice with other materials and principles I engage with.
Craft School: Material World - Creative Mending with Maiko Tsutsumi
In this clip for The Crafts Council’s Craft School: Material World - annual nationwide challenge taking place in the classrooms across the UK - I am talking about the mindset of making and Kintsugi. The programme invites children, young people, their teachers and craft educators to engage with the power of craft thinking and making.
Neither III
Corvi-Mora at Neither: Shawanda Corbett, Anika Roach, Maiko Tsutsumi
Neither 2 Wincott Parade, London SE11 6SR
20 January 2024 - 28 February 2024
Opening Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 - 18:00
The Elder (2023-2024)
Elder (Sambucus nigra), Japanese lacquer, patinated silver
(Photo credit: Alzbeta Jaresova Photography)
MAIKO TSUTSUMI
Catalogue of Time
4 March - 1 April 2023
Opening reception with the artist present 4 March 11 - 4
Gallery open times Thursday - Friday 11 - 5 Saturday 11 - 4
Maiko Tsutsumi has a long and intimate relationship with working in wood, becoming one with the histories of making, of skills, of the life of trees, of the lands, and of thoughts. For a Catalogue of Time, the gallery becomes a private space in which the artist has spent time arranging and displaying fragments of former trees found and refashioned through whittling and smoothing. An archive, a survey, the body of work presented in this exhibition showcases this process of seeking and understanding a personal journey. The fragments were collected from streets, parks and woods passed through on her daily travels, found on workshop floors or in the gardens of friends; serendipitous meetings with elements that invite and instigate a response.
Energies and rhythms inherent in the growth of the found fragments are amplified by the action of the artist. Elm, pear, hazel, privet, poplar, ash, hornbeam, greengage and rose; offcuts, prunings and windfalls, each with their individual dynamic make up the artist’s vocabulary. Branches and twigs become sinuous tapering glyphs as the artist delicately carves away to reveal hidden lives within. Through arranging in her studio and now within the gallery these take the form of arboreal phonetics, notational interventions creating an inventory of possibilities.
Studio 2022 Photograph. Valeria Armeni
About the artist
Maiko Tsutsumi is a Japanese artist based in London. She trained in woodwork and Japanese lacquer work in Kyoto before moving to London in 1996, to study furniture design at the Royal College of Art. She worked for Tomoko Azumi’s TNA Design Studio until 2012. She completed her practice-based PhD, The Poetics of Everyday Objects in 2007, funded by Kingston University.
Maiko was the course leader for MA Designer Maker at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, for twelve years until 2020. During this period, she curated several exhibitions - Thingness (2011 & 2013), The Laundry Room (2012), The Department of Repair (2015), On the Way to Language (2018), as part of her research that investigates the nature of knowledge-in-practice.
After an intensive period working in education, Maiko resumed her studio practice In 2017 to have more time to investigate how previous experiences and modes of expression would inform the development of new works. Recent exhibitions include: Hidden Variables, m2 Gallery (solo 2019). The Size of Thoughts, White Conduit Projects (2019). Eternally Yours; Care, Repair, Healing, Somerset House (2022). m2 Artists Recent Works, ASC Gallery (2022). We Are the Orchard and the Road Leading Past, Momosan Shop (solo 2022). A Space Between, Edmund de Waal Studio (2022).
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