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Beauty of Mending

Kintsugi and Beyond

As Leonard Cohen wrote, “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Beauty of Mending features kintsugi, a traditional craft of repairing shattered ceramics with lacquer and gold. Showcasing intricately restored pieces by Kintsugi artist Naoko Fukumaru, you are invited to witness the transformation of cracked or flawed items into exquisite works of art. The artistry of mending not only highlights the beauty of imperfection but also encourages reflection on resilience and acceptance. Complimenting these works will be selected pieces from the AGGV Collection, such as ice-crackle patterned porcelains, and paintings with “accidental” strokes that celebrate this philosophy. Join us in exploring how imperfection can reveal unexpected beauty and profound meaning.

This exhibition is presented by:

Artist Biography:

Naoko Fukumaru, 福丸直子, was born in Kyoto, Japan to a third-generation antique auction house family, the business began with her great-grandfather collecting unwanted broken objects by wheelbarrow and repairing them at home. Growing up surrounded by fine arts and antiques, Fukumaru began to experiment with broken objects at an early age, a passion she built into a career. She graduated from West Dean College, Chichester, England in 2000, with a post-graduate diploma in Ceramics, Glass, and Related Materials Conservation and Restoration which led her to more than two decades of working as a professional ceramic and glass conservator at the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and other institutions in the USA, Europe, Egypt, and Japan. Working with international museums and cultural heritage has honed Fukumaru’s restoration skills to expert levels. She has been involved in major restoration, conservation, and fabrication projects including The Last Supper by Leonard da Vinci, The Tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt, Caravaggio and Veronese paintings, The Thinker by Rodin, The Detroit Industry Murals by Diego Rivera, Yoko Ono, Anish Kapoor, Peter Greenaway, and Marc Quinn. Fukumaru was awarded Individual Arts Grants from the British Columbia Arts Council in 2022 and 2023. Her Ishibashi Foundation/The Japan Foundation Fellowship award in 2023 increased her knowledge and techniques in Maki-e, a traditional Japanese lacquer decoration. During her fellowship in Japan, she learned authentic Maki-e techniques under the third-generation Maki-e master Yutaro Shimode, who was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure in Japan. Her present work aims to take these skills beyond invisible perfection, to make the imperfect beautifully visible. She applies her experience of Western and European hidden restoration towards the more artistically creative methods of traditional Japanese Kintsugi and Maki-e. Instead of hiding restorations, Fukumaru showcases them, allowing imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness to be featured and embraced.