Artist Conversation #5

Artist: Kiyomi Fukui

Exhibition: 1000 Paper Crane

Media: drawing, crafting, using intellectual applications to forms of art, paper

Website: http://Kiyomifukui.com

Instagram: kiyomimiz

Kiyomi Fukui is a print maker and former student at CSULB. Some fun facts about her is that her favorite food is Japanese noodles. She is fascinated by spiritual connections that can be discovered and revealed through art in a healing way. During a live interview she mentioned her parents lived in Korea but that they didn’t actually speak it the language. She has an emotional relationship with her father that goes beyond something that she can just skim over. For Kiyomi, her fathers journey in life was very significant. He had to change his identity and undergo many transitions to fit into society. This was something she later understood in life and could relate with her father.

In this exhibition, Kiyomi formed paper cranes in honor of her father. They were traditionally made to tell someone you are thinking of them, typically when they were ill. The cranes are placed along a narrow wooden shelf that outlines the perimeter of the white walls. There is not much color involved but the paper and the writing on it make it seem old-fashioned, like something of the past. Frozen in time, cards, messages, emotions, stored away in those paper cranes. The cranes are folded crisply but placed mounted on top of one another to reveal the abundance. The size is pretty small and invites you to zoom in for a more detailed observation.

As mentioned earlier, the main source of motivation behind the exhibit is to achieve some sort of therapeutic benefit. She has had many difficulties understanding her father and that is something she wants to heal from. The intention behind the project is to convey emotion and allow them to be felt. This artist creates more ephemeral art that comes with deterioration and everything else nature decides. She is not afraid of embracing her pain and struggles if it means getting to make the most out of something.

This artist is extremely enlightened and I agree with many of her concepts. I do believe that pain can be beauty and that sometimes that pain involves letting go. This idea of creating ephemeral art is more about the experience and the message, rather than the final result or physical qualities. I think it’s such a beautiful thing to expose yourself to your inner discomforts and struggles with the intention of healing. Doing this for yourself and sharing it with others is even more beautiful.