➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_Words Like Snow_Painted camphor wood, marble, glass and wire_104 x 46 x 35 cm _2016
A legend of contemporary Japanese sculpture — forty-five years of creation in review.
Katsura Funakoshi is regarded as one of Japan’s most significant contemporary sculptors. Since the early 1980s, he has worked primarily with camphor wood, focusing on the human figure as his central motif. His sculptures merge realism, introspection, and surreal form, leaving a lasting influence on Japan’s contemporary art scene. Following his passing in 2024, this retrospective brings together key works spanning over four decades. Opening in November 2025 at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibition features sculptures, paintings, and prints that trace the evolution of his artistic vision.
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_Solitary as a Forest_ Painted camphor wood and marble _112 x 50 x 30 cm_ 2015
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_The Another Sphinx_ Painted camphor wood, marble and leather _100 x 54 x 34 cm_2010
Milestones on the International Stage
Since representing Japan at the 43rd Venice Biennale in 1988, Funakoshi’s works have been featured in major international exhibitions including the 1989 São Paulo Biennial, Documenta IX in 1992, and the inaugural Shanghai Biennale in 2000. His sculptures are in the collections of major institutions such as the British Museum, Museum Ludwig, Centre Pompidou, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2011, he was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon, one of Japan’s highest honors in the arts. Funakoshi passed away in 2024 and was awarded with the Order of the Rising Sun. Divided into three thematic sections, the exhibition explores Funakoshi’s enduring fascination with the human body and his reflections on life itself.
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_DR1402_Pencil on paper_Image_94.9 x 88.5 cm_Frame_101 x 94.5 cm_2014
Human Realms — The Realist Portrait and Its Gaze
In the early 1980s, Katsura Funakoshi emerged with a series of highly realistic wooden busts. At a time when Japan was experiencing rapid economic growth and widespread pursuit of material success, his work stood apart—silent, introspective, and spiritually attuned, offering an alternative way of relating to the world. Influenced from a young age by Auguste Rodin through his sculptor father, Funakoshi deepened his understanding of Western portraiture during his stay in Europe in 1986. While his formal language engages in dialogue with Western sculpture, his emphasis on spiritual presence and the innate qualities of wood resonates deeply with the Buddhist statuary traditions of Japan’s Kei School, particularly the 12th–13th century sculptor Unkei.
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_ To Forgive the Sea_Painted camphor wood, marble and miscellaneous tree_187.5 x 102 x 82 cm_2016
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_Curious Forest_ Painted camphor wood and marble_203 x 59 x 90 cm_ 2014
Many of his early sculptures are half-length figures, meticulously detailed in face and clothing, modeled after friends, family, or anonymous subjects. Their distant gazes seem suspended in time, fixed within a meditative realm. At times, Funakoshi observed passengers on trains, capturing fleeting glances and transmuting them into timeless expressions through sculpture. He preserved traces of the carving process, allowing the grain of the camphor wood and rhythm of his chisel marks to remain visible. Subtle coloration and pencil lines on the surface lend the works painterly nuances and a soft luminosity. The figures' eyes, inlaid with marble that mimics the striation of real irises, intensify the mysterious emotional depth of their gaze.
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_A Green Lake Within Myself_ Painted camphor wood and marble_103.5 x 54 x 28.3 cm_ 2008
In Between — The Spiritual Portrait on Paper
Since the mid-1980s, Funakoshi also produced a large number of works on paper—prints, drawings, and watercolors. Although often echoing the figures in his sculptures, these works are not preparatory sketches but fully realized artworks that have been frequently exhibited. They extend his ongoing inquiry into stillness, symbolism, and the act of gazing, while allowing more imaginative and surrealistic elements to emerge. Technically, Funakoshi experimented with various printmaking methods, including mezzotint, aquatint, and woodblock printing. These techniques enhanced the tonal depth and delicate textures of his compositions, rendering his figures with a sculptural presence on paper. His line work and color palette parallel the textures and soft hues of his wooden sculptures, establishing a dialogue between the two mediums and forging a unique crossover between the pictorial and the sculptural. His drawings and prints have resonated far beyond the visual arts. The quiet solitude and spiritual gravity of his figures have made them icons within Japanese literature and popular culture. His works have been chosen as cover art for several renowned novels, including The Light of the Strait by Hitonari Tsuji and The Mourner and Eternal Child by Arata Tendo—attesting to their status as universal symbols of introspection and the human spirit.
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_DR0606_Charcoal, Colored pencil, oil on paper_Image 103.5 x 90 cm_Frame 109.5 x 96 cm_2006
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI_DR0716_ Pencil and charcoal on paper _Image 98 x 85 cm_Frame_104 x 90.5 cm_ 2007
Illusory Realms — Hybrid Beings and Surreal Visions
From the 1990s onward, Funakoshi's sculptures became increasingly surreal and symbolic. Hybrid figures bearing creature characteristics began to appear. This shift coincided with a period of cultural anxiety in Japan—marked by the collapse of the economic bubble, the Great Hanshin Earthquake, and the Tokyo subway sarin attack—which spurred a broader interest in spirituality, hybridity, and the otherworldly in art and literature. The mythic presence and creature-human fusion in Funakoshi's work reflect this cultural milieu. These hybrid figures suggest not only symbolic or religious associations but also a critique of anthropocentrism. Influenced by Surrealism, he embraced a language of inner transformation and transcendence. Around 2010, his Sphinx series emerged as a landmark body of work, epitomizing his surrealist phase and becoming among his most recognized creations
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI _The Sphinx within Myself_Direct gravure_ Image 59.5 x 44cm_Frame_99 x 82 cm_2008_AP.3-10
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI _The Sphinx in the Desert_Direct gravure,engraving,drypoint on paper_Image 75.5 x 57cm_Frame 80.5 x 62.5 cm_2005_ed.1-20
➤ Katsura FUNAKOSHI _Uncertain Mirror_Lithography_Image 64 x 91 cm_Frame 68.5 x 95.5 cm_1994_AP.4-6
