Visiting artist fills El Paso with supersculptures
By Maribel Villalva / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 04/06/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT
Rie Kawakami is the artist-in-residence at the Border Art Residency in La Union, N.M. (Courtesy of the Border Art Residency)
Click photo to enlarge
A variety of stone sculptures by Rie Kawakami.
For the past six months, Japanese artist Rie Kawakami has been busy manipulating steel into art in the quiet community of La Union N.M.
As the current artist at the Border Art Residency, Kawakami has been able to spend her days concentrating on her art and rediscovering her love for metal sculpture.
"I used to have a lot of questions about my art. I tried to challenge myself to try something new, but I realized I can't switch my art to something different," the 46-year-old Kawakami said. "I finally figured out that art cannot be changed.
"When I came here, I didn't come with any specific ideas, so I just started getting back to what I am, and I'm very happy about it."
As a contemporary abstract sculptor, Kawakami creates large-scale, sometimes-interactive pieces, mostly in metal. She also works with paper, rocks and computer graphics, but it's the massive works of steel that she is compelled to create.
The Border Art Residency, now in its eighth year, gives professional studio artists like Kawakami a temporary place to live and work solely on their craft. The artists also receive a stipend to cover some living expenses.
The sculptures Kawakami has been creating during her residency will be on display today at the Olo Gallery, 504 San Francisco.
The showcase piece will be a metal sculpture titled "Undulating Earth," which Kawakami said weighs more than half a ton.
The event also will double as a fundraiser for the Border Art Residency, which needs to raise about
Advertisement
$100,000 so that the nonprofit organization can reach its $300,000 endowment fund goal. When it reaches that goal, the residency will be able to use the interest from the endowment fund to completely finance all future residencies.
Border Art Residency founder Willie Ray Parish said the selection committee was so impressed with Kawakami's work that she was selected as the 2007-08 resident.
"She had done a number of works that allowed for audience participation. They were done with simple geometric forms, and visitors could alter and manipulate the forms. That really caught our eye, because it was a little different and yet consistent with the post-modern thinking we look for," Parish said.
"It's been very interesting watching her develop her work."
During her residency, Kawakami also was named the artist-in-residence at the University of Texas at El Paso's Art Department. UTEP is the only place in the area that has the equipment she needs to work on her large-scale pieces.
But her time at UTEP also has been a blessing, said Parish, who is also a professor of sculpture at UTEP.
"The fact that our students have access to a female professional sculptor is such a positive thing," he said.
"Her being here and interacting with UTEP students is exactly what we're trying to do with the residency."
Discovering El Paso
Kawakami grew up in a suburb of Tokyo and finished art school there. She and her then-husband spent the next several years in Hokkaido, Japan, where Kawakami taught part time.
"Little by little, I started applying to residencies in the States," she said. She had done four residencies before arriving here -- one at the Location One International Residency Program in New York and three at the Vermont Studio Center.
Kawakami had never heard of El Paso until 2006, when she met another Japanese artist,Kumi Yamashita, who had been a previous artist-in-residence at the Border Art Residency in 2002-03.
"She was the one who recommended I try for this opportunity," she said. "I had no idea about this place. Everything was very new to me when I arrived. I immediately sensed something unique: the different climate, the landscape, the cultures and even 'Spanglish'."
Parish said Kawakami easily works eight-hour days, but she has managed to find time to explore life in El Paso, mostly with board members of the Border Art Residency, fellow artists and UTEP students. Kawakami even hosted a Super Bowl party at the residency.
After her residency, which will expire at the end of May, Kawakami plans to return to Japan for some time.
"I still have a part-time job over there to teach. It's going to be hard getting back into the real world. It's something I have been avoiding. I've had such a peaceful time staying focused on my art," she said.
Re-creating the Earth
Kawakami has created several pieces of art during her stay -- all of which will be displayed today at the Olo Gallery. The highlight of her stay is undoubtedly the piece titled "Undulating Earth," which she said took more than three months to complete.
The piece was created specifically for a sculpture show in Wichita Falls that Parish is co-curating. It is made of dozens of individual steel rods welded together to form a three-dimensional doughnut-shaped sculpture with protruding spheres.
Kawakami also incorporates rust into much of her work. If the outdoor conditions lend themselves, she allows the rust to form naturally. In El Paso, though, she use chemicals to accelerate the rust process.
"The rust is part of the life expression. The rust happens from breathing in the air, and I think that's a nice metaphor," she said.
Kawakami describes her work as "old style and traditional."
"I learned a lot of traditional skills to work with the material, and I like those skills. I think that's one of the reasons I still do it that way," she said.
In "Undulating Earth," Kawakami said, she wants the audience to feel a range of emotions:
"I want them to feel funny, sad, happy -- all of those human emotions that you have in your daily life."
Maribel Villalva may be reached at mvillalva@elpasotimes.com; 546-6129.
Make plans
# What: Border Art Residency End-of-Residency celebration and fundraiser featuring the artwork of current the resident, Rie Kawakami.
# When: 2 to 4 p.m. today.
# Where: Olo Gallery, 504 San Francisco.
# Information:"533-9575.
# More on Kawakami:"Her Web site is www.riekawakami.net. She will be at the Border Art Residency through May.
El Paso Times - April 13, 2008
The Prospector - April 8, 2008
El Paso Times - April 6, 2008
Newspaper Tree - Mar. 23, 2008
El Paso Magazine - Feb. 2008
El Paso Times - Nov. 18, 2007
El Paso Times - Nov. 4, 2007
What's Up - Nov. 2007