Cavin-Morris is pleased to present one of the first exhibitions in New York City of artwork by self-taught artists from Japan. The show will be this first of many exhibitions centered on drawings and paintings with strong abstract calligraphic content, ceramics with an almost deconstructed tribal feeling, and wildly expressionistic textiles. There is a sub-current that travels through this work; it unravels the tightly wound meticulous constrictions of Japanese Traditional Craft and explodes it into a fascinating world of anti-calligraphy, anti-sculpture, and anti-textile formalism. The art in this exhibition never loses its Japanese context but its aesthetic capacity to interface with contemporary world art by trained and untrained artists is powerful and non-challengeable.

We were introduced to this body of Japanese Art Brut by the contemporary artist Yohei Nishimura, whose sensitive guidance and non-interference has nurtured the creative journeys of artists with disabilities in Japan. This work is raw and beautiful. Its ragged edges appear because the individual expression is less about control of technique then the struggle for direct expression and immediate contact with materials and translation of ideas. The strength of individual styles prevail through the drawings, ceramics and fiber pieces, and this is as much a testament to Nishimura’s sensitive midwifery of expression in a world where too often instructors unduly dominate and influence the work. He offers immediate help when it comes to the technical process of firing the ceramics. The two ateliers represented in this exhibition provide the artists studio space away form home, but most of these artists continue their creative activities at home as well.

Artists working on paper include Masao Obata, Hiroe Kittaka, Shigemi Fujii, Yuichi Saito, and Tomohiro Fujisawa. Ceramic artists include Kazumi Kamae, Yoshiaki Fujikawa, Hiroko Kawabe, Yukio Miyashita, Nahoko Ohara, Masami Yamagiwa, and Hideaki Yoshikawa. The two fiber artists are Tami Murakami and Takayiki Oome.