
03/04/2024
Katsura Funakoshi 1951 - 2024
Annely Juda Fine Art is sad to announce the death of the renowned Japanese sculptor Katsura Funakoshi.
We were proud to work with Katura Funskoshi for over 30 years, hosting his first European exhibition in 1991. Funakoshi carved spiritual, figurative sculptures from camphor wood. His sculptures were painted in subtle tones that enhance both the characteristics of the wood and its ability to mimic human flesh. The figures are rarely actual likenesses but are intensely personal and, despite portraying only the head and torso, have the presence of real people: of body and of spirit. The spirituality of the works were emphasised by the surrealist additions of animal features or transplanted body parts. In some of his later sculptures, Funakoshi included additional objects, such as animals and trees that formed a circle around a figure’s head. In Funakoshi’s own words “When something happens, I can see lots of things which stand up from one’s shoulder just like an aurora and a rainbow, orbiting above one’s head, and sinking into the other side.”
Funakoshi was born in Morioka, northern Japan in 1951 and studied at Tokyo University of Art. He received many awards and exhibited in Japan, USA and Europe. In 2000 he had a major one-man exhibition at Annely Juda Fine Art, which toured to Kunsthalle Recklinghausen and Städtische Museen Heilbronn, Germany.