Dancing on the Field, 大倉侍郎 Ōkura Jirō

Exhibition Label:
“Holding Pattern: New Works at the Spencer Museum,” Sep-2014, Kris Ercums
I am now striving to find how simply and naturally I can relate to wood. The intellect, tools, and forms are merely an entrance. What is important is reaching the soul…and making it known. — Ōkura Jiro (1984)
The natural world resonates in Ōkura’s art, reflected in his deep respect for trees. For Ōkura, sculpting with wood represents a way of communing with Nature. He recalled that “touching wood [for me] became the most important act of living.” Ōkura sculpts using thick planks of kusunoki 楠, the Japanese camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora)—an aromatic, extremely hard evergreen that grows wild just north of the ancient capital of Kyoto.
As a young man, Ōkura studied Zen meditation at Manpuku-ji 萬福寺 (an Obaku temple near his hometown of Uji). He recalls the extreme difficulty of reaching mu 無—a state of emptiness (literally “nothingness”). On a subsequent trip through the American Southwest, Ōkura suddenly experienced mu (nothingness), a sensation caused by the vanishing point between the sky and earth, as he drove through the vast desert expanses of Arizona and New Mexico. His sculpture is imbued with stillness and quietude, and reflects the infinite. The tranquil character of Ōkura’s sculptures reflects yugen 幽玄, an aesthetic ideal of profound grace and transcendental beauty.