Bamboo sculpture by Honda Shōryū (Japanese, born 1951), made in 2012 from madake bamboo and rattan, with an enameled metal stand. The work is formed from finely woven bamboo strips shaped into an open, curving structure. The underside is incised with the artist’s signature in kanji, and the original box is titled Catalpa. It is accompanied by a digital copy of the Tai Gallery invoice, the original artist’s cardboard box, original green silk and artist-made stand.
2012
Madake, rattan, enameled metal stand
16¼ h × 9½ w × 9 d in
(41 × 24 × 23 cm)
About the Maker:
Honda Shōryū is a Japanese bamboo artist known for open, undulating sculptures made from finely worked bamboo. Born in Kagoshima Prefecture in 1951, he graduated from the Oita Prefecture Bamboo Training Institute and trained under Kadota Nikō, a noted bamboo artist. His work has been regularly selected for the Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition since the late 1980s, and he was admitted to Nitten, the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, in 2000. Shōryū’s sculptures are valued for the way they push traditional basketry into abstract form. The Met notes that his works use meticulous twining, or nawame-ami, with thin bamboo strips shaped after the structure is softened in hot water. Catalpa shows that approach in a compact form: precise weaving, open tension and a shape that feels suspended between vessel, sculpture and movement.
