Kyoko Kumai

Kyoko Kumai is a Japan-based artist who frequently uses materials like stainless steel wire within her artwork. She aims to achieve works that juxtapose technological symbols with tradition and nature, such as weaving, stitching, twisting, binding and entwining which have been used since time immemorial.

Statement:

"Thin pieces of stainless steel wire mass-produced in a factory are inorganic and monotonous by themselves, but when they are woven, twisted or bundled together they take on an organic appearance that serves to express various aspects of wind, air and light. The richly expressive fabrics that result do not stand solidly, cleaving the air. They have their source in textiles, which have their own language, fluttering above the floor, breathing and melting into the air."
 

Selected permanent collections and exhibition venues:
Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (solo exhibition); Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (permanent collection); Savaria Museum, Szombathely, Hungary; Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England; Museum of Textile Art, Angers, France; Central Museum of Textiles, ?ódz´, Poland; Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan; Museums Sheffield, Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire, UK (permanent collection); Oita Prefectural Art Museum, Japan; National Science Museum, London, England (permanent collection); Japan Society, New York, New York; Design Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Gjethuset Museum, Frederiksværk, Denmark; San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art, California (Fiber Futures: Japan's Textile Pioneers, traveling exhibition, catalog); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (Textural SPACE, curated by Lesley Millar, traveling exhibition, catalog); Author: Kyoko Kumai's Fiber Works 1975-1990 (1991).