RIE SAKAMOTO, widely recognized throughout Japan for her lacquer art, was born into a third generation family in Aizu Wakamatsu, in Japan's northern Tohoku Region, that provided raw urushi (lacquer) for others who produced lacquer ware in the traditional lacquer industry of Aizu Wakamatsu. In 1990 she began making lacquered jewelry for her own use, and her atalier, STUDIO EYES, was born. While lacquered combs and hair ornaments were once luxury items widely sought after as accessories for traditional kimono, Rie Sakamoto's lacquered jewelry and handbags are designed for contemporary women who wear non-traditional clothing. Her jewelry is carved from woods of the ho (magnolia hypoleuca) and hiba trees (thujopsis dolabrata), both of which are light in weight, comfortable, and which respond to her bold, imaginative forms and designs.

In concert with her husband, Asao, she has expanded the palette of colored lacquer by adding titanium, resulting in unusual mysterious tones of silver and blue, and by introducing smoked silver leaf that produces a new, rich range of pewter colored lacquer. Her dramatic designs are frequently drawn from the past, but more typically are from her own imagination.

Although her lacquer art has grown widely popular throughout Japan, her first exhibition outside of Japan in Paris in 2004, brought her immediate international recognition. In this first exhibition in the United States she will feature not only her lacquered jewelry, but also lacquer decorated leather handbags, walking canes, lidded boxes and tea caddies.