Hino gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Keizo Tawa from Monday, January 20th, at the beginning of the new year, 2020.

Keizo Tawa is a sculptor who has been working with iron as his main material for over 40 years. This exhibition is set to commemorate Tawa’s retirement from Tama Art University, where he has been working as a professor of the sculpture department since 2009. The show will consist of his most recent works, primarily, and a few selected works which have been created during the 11 years since Tawa assumed the position at the university.

In Tawa’s creations, he has been ultimately pursuing the ways of being as “a thing,” that also includes people, perhaps even the artist himself, while exploring the relationship between material objects and human beings through his chosen materials, especially iron. Having said that, this pursuance could probably come from a more honest and primitive place in his artistic mind as it reads from his own words, poetic and with a distinctly human touch, contributed to a catalogue of his touring solo exhibition “Keizo TAWA – Striking Iron,” started by the Ashikaga Museum of Art, Tochigi, in 2010, as well as an exhibition entitled “Delineate Space – Sculpture and Dessin” which is the latest touring group show in which Tawa participated, started by the Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa.


and then I took a nap
Then when I opened my eyes, there was the sky
For a moment, it felt like I was about to fall into the bottomless sky
Desperately holding on with my back

Excerpt from a catalogue “Keizo TAWA – Striking Iron”


Something that works out by just being
In light and sky, my bare self
Isolation? Togetherness?
Squashed by the light’s intensity
Eventually vanish, and only light remains

Excerpt from a catalogue “Delineate Space – Sculpture and Dessin”


Needless to say, the iron that Tawa has been using as his chosen material is stout, heavy, and exudes a true sense of existence, tough and firm, that is strong enough to attest to “real being” no matter how small it is. However, upon observing his oeuvre more carefully, you may perceive that the artist also focuses on insubstantiality at the same time as he recognizes its irresistible substantiality.

Tawa gives much thought to the fact that every “thing” will vanish away sooner or later, and his works that he calls “Mono; a thing” will continuously enlighten us about the difficulty or ironhandedness of existing and, all the more, the gratefulness and preciousness of just being there quietly as though a surrogate for the artist himself.

In this exhibition, a sculpture made from Ohya stone from Tawa’s previous works, as well as iron sculptures and three works from his latest creation which are made by the use of scrap iron that Tawa has been working on for the past decade will be showcased.
Those three, island-like, uniquely shaped works consist of iron material that was left over in the process of his production thus far, or scrap yielded in an iron mill which has no apparent use. Despite that, those works’ bottom faces, which cannot be seen, are polished up until the artist has achieved a mirrored finish. This approach is also the way that Tawa has intentionally taken on in his creations for all these years, and it is attributed to his contrasting attempt to emphasize the real beingness of “Mono; a thing,” while at the same time, to eliminate its beingness by replacing it with a mirrored image, born from the mirror-finished face that reflects outside entities. It could also suggest that this approach is based on the artist’s sense of both substantiality and insubstantiality.

This exhibition will make for a significant milestone in Tawa’s artistic career. We hope you will view it while simultaneously looking back fondly on his previous work as well as looking forward to what the future has in store for this exceptional artist.

Image: Bu Tsu Shi Tsu －SEI・2－ 2019, Iron, 30×38×39 cm