HANA - The Essence of Life

I haven't seen many exhibitions during Fringe, which disappoints me a little, but I've been so busy with Totem that I jsut haven't been able to find the time.

But I did drop by Collingwood Gallery on Smith St to see Hana, an exhibition from 30 Japanese artists on the theme 'The essence of life'. The word Hana means 'flower, essence, spirit and beauty'.

The styles are incredibly diverse, from Izumi Ishihara's graphic style to Kou's oil on board works reminiscent of looking at old children's book characters through the sepia haze of time. I really liked these paintings

There was Misa Tsutsui's work, which was a style recognisable from the Sailor Moon type characters. A single figure on each canvas, pretty but not really remarkable. Kisho Tokutomi's work, jsut around the corner, were incredibly detailed, again the single figure but this time with highly patterned kimino garments and executed beautifully.

There were also landscapes, absracts, highly graphical work to the traditional (and beautiful) black ink Shodo work. On the other side of the gallery were some 3d objects, hats, and some incredibl silver and pearl jewellery. One of my favourites was a number of sweet sculptures from Nazomi Ueno called "It's my turn, bear" "It's my turn, rabbit" "It's my turn, mouse" and "sloth" These were 4 small sculptures on wooden plaques of a wooden chair with the aforementioned animal sitting and fishing off it, except "sloth" which was the same size and shaped plaque but with a little sloth hanging off a hook. Very cute.

Hana was an interested window into another culture's art world. You can see traditional influences and artists applying those influences to modern situations. It didn't really make me think, but i did spend an interesting half an hour in there.