"Three Tones at Spiral Garden" designed by Three Tones at Spiral Garden by Isaku Design + Tashiro Design offers a refreshing perspective on textile design, celebrating its complexity and beauty through the unique visions of three accomplished designers.
Against the backdrop of a landscape where independent textile designers are few and far between, the exhibition "Three Tones at Spiral Garden" — a symphony orchestrated by the hands of three venerated textile designers Masaru Suzuki, Hiroyuki Seioka, and Reiko Sudo — brings a refreshing perspective. A rare tribute to the often-overlooked genre of textile exhibits, this collaborative display brings textile art to the forefront of the design world.
Masaru Suzuki, in a courageous play of pigments, pushes boundaries with his installation titled "Everything Visible, All Patterns and Colors". Imbuing the fabric with a richness of hues — from the fiery red to the mellow gray, and the flamboyant pink to the sedate green, he demonstrates his genius. His work is a symphony of cascading drapes falling from the ceiling and a pastiche of colorful umbrellas unfolding across a wall. Surprisingly, in spite of the riot of colors, the overall effect is not chaotic. Instead, the atmosphere is enlivened, filled with an energetic vibe. Perhaps, the cleverness lies in the use of fabric as the medium or the excellent interplay of colors.
Hiroyuki Seioka, in stark contrast, transports us to a solemn world with his work, "The Passage". He meticulously dyes kozo, a common ingredient in Japanese paper, in black and prints it on four types of black fabric including silk organza, Fuji silk, silk velvet, and polyester organza. The fabrics, metamorphosed into garments, simultaneously engulf the exhibition space, creating a somber path. The kozo paper's unique texture paired with the scattered light filtering through the printed grid casts a captivating, otherworldly aura.
In the realm of textile art, veteran Reiko Sudo is no stranger to employing traditional Japanese dyeing and weaving techniques or embracing modern technologies in her creations. Her work, titled "Cloth, Color, and Space", showcases the inherent beauty of materials. Utilizing 34 different types of fabric, predominantly in white, she creates an installation that swathes the room in cylindrical curtains. Each piece of fabric, distinct in material, weave, and processing method, exhibits its unique nuance even within the same hue of white. According to Sudo, her work aims to evoke a "sense of presence" — a gentle nudge reminding us that textiles permeate our everyday lives, often unnoticed.
