THE art and culture of Japan have had generous exposure in the North East this year and here is another welcome exhibition to add further insight.
While Baltic is still showing the work of Yoshitomo Nara and the New York-based Mariko Mori, Northern Print boasts the work of three artists who exhibit under the heading Japan Prints Now.
They are Chizuru Kondo, Maiko Segawa and Ema Shin.
All use the woodcut printmaking technique employed by one of Japan’s most famous artists, Katsushika Hokusai, whose life spanned the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries.
When many of us think of Japanese prints, it is Hokusai’s delicate works, featuring volcanoes and waves, which most likely spring to mind – even if we might not know the name.
Hokusai died in 1849 but Chizuru Kondo is very much alive and was at Northern Print this week to host a workshop for North East artists.
Her prints are brightly coloured and unmistakably Japanese – but at the same time contemporary.
She said she strove to inject humour into her work while deploying traditional Japanese forms, symbols, culture and technique.
Underground Japanese culture of the 1960s was a particular source of inspiration, notably a hugely popular post-war cartoon called Sazae-san.
This was drawn by Machiko Hasegawa and appeared in a Japanese newspaper from 1946 until the artist retired in 1974. Dealing with life in Tokyo, it is said the cartoon is known to everyone in Japan – rather as Viz strikes a chord in the North East, perhaps.
"My work doesn’t have a serious story," said Chizuru. "I want to make you smile."
Some of this emphasis on fun also comes across over the river in the Yoshitomo Nara exhibition at Baltic, although that artist’s drawings of children manage to be both cute and rather menacing.
Chizuru Kondo was born in Ishikawa in 1976 and has exhibited regularly since graduating in 1999 from Nagoya University of Arts, notably at the Nagoya Citizens’ Gallery. Anna Wilkinson, the director of Northern Print, says the North East printmaking centre has built up a relationship with printmakers from Nagoya over 10 years with several exhibition exchanges.
The three artists represented in this exhibition were selected by renowned printmaker Hiroyuki Suzuki, who was Northern Print artist-in-residence in 2007.
We suggest a small tour of contemporary Japanese art, taking in a stroll over the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.
Japan Prints Now is open until August 16 and admission is free.
Showing simultaneously is an exhibition of work by North East artists Elizabeth Talbot and Chris McHugh.
For details of all Northern Print activities, visit www.northernprint.org.uk or tel (0191) 261-7000.
The gallery is open from Wednesday to Friday, 11am to 5pm, and on Saturday, noon until 4pm.