Lacquer Jewelry by Sakamoto Rie and Madoka

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), Katsura(Cercidiphyllum japonicum) and hiba trees (thujopsis dolabrata), 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.

Her daughter Madoka, originally Japanese-style painter, has been working with her parents since 2006 and infusing new breath into jewelry design.

Although her lacquer art has grown widely popular throughout Japan, her first solo exhibition in 2005 in Boston at KEIKO Gallery, SOFA Chicago 2006 and SOFA New York 2007, brought her immediate international recognition. In this second solo exhibition in the United States she will feature not only her new lacquered jewelry, but also lacquer decorated leather handbags and lacquer painted tapestries.