An international award-winning printmaker is returning to the Vernon Public Art Gallery to show his latest creations in the exhibition, recurring cycles.
Shinsuke Minegishi is a Vancouver-based artist who first exhibited his work at the VPAG as part of the inaugural Okanagan Print Triennial in 2009.
“We are pleased to welcome Shinsuke back to the gallery,” said VPAG executive director Dauna Kennedy Grant. “He is best known for his work in combining various print media such as wood engraving (traditional), lithography, and screen printing.”
Minegishi currently works as a studio technician at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design as well as a continuing studies instructor. He says his exhibition is based on his life experiences and reflection on the cyclical nature of life and death.
“Minegishi’s exhibition, recurring cycles, is a contemplative and philosophical engagement with the universal cycles of the beginning and the end transposed to human lives, births and deaths of people, namely Minegishi’s close family members and friends,” reads a statement from the VPAG.
Minegishi often combines various print technologies and creates images which reference the human condition through the use of symbolic pictorial elements.
According to the gallery, Minegishi’s images often portray archetypal forms from the natural world in combination with a portrayal of ambiguous spaces that are at once earth-like while they also communicate the vastness of the cosmic space.
Other images in this exhibition juxtapose results of human activity with the images of natural growth and renewal.
“An additional series of 10 prints feature non-representational abstract colour field works which offer the viewers a ground for associative engagement and the resulting feeling of luminous voids and spaces,” reads the statement. “Juxtaposed simple geometric line-like shapes placed in the centre of each print provide a visual cadence for a symbolic reference for the beginning and the completion of a cycle.”
An opening reception for Minegishi’s recurring cycles takes place at the VPAG Thursday, March 16 from 6 p.m to 8 p.m. The public can enjoy an evening of art, music, appetizers and refreshments.