Tanaka Kazuhiko was born in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, and graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a major in Architecture Design. For more than thirty-five years, he has been working as an architect in Tokyo.

Since 1991, Tanaka has used stone clay to create miniature sculptures. He playfully calls his artwork “the mini-sculptures created by an architect who does not like large buildings.” His interest in creating these diminutive sculptures is deeply rooted in the distinctive Japanese cultural obsession with the miniature; like the Bonsai or the Netsuke, the Japanese delights in defining the world in a smaller scale, with all the intricacies and complexities of their larger counterparts.

Tanaka’s first project, Flying Figures, was inspired by his dream. He made a series of flying figures to recapture the sensation of being weightless and airborne, a sensation that he found possible only in his dreams. Then Tanaka created other miniature sculptures for the LIFESCAPE series, a word coined by Tanaka to express the fleeting and seemingly inconspicuous scenes of our lives. He finds beauty and poetry in our ordinary daily moments. He hopes to use his artwork to recreate these precious scenes that defined his past, and defines who he is as an artist, as an architect, and as a person.

When these finger-sized sculptures are placed near the window, on the table, or on the shelf, they almost seem to eloquently recount Tanaka’s story. By making his sculptures affordable, he empowers more people to appreciate art, and invites everyone to use these sculptures to create his own art composition. Perhaps, as the viewer reflects on his own past, he may hear the sculptures speak of his own story as well.

More than two hundred pieces of the miniature sculptures will be displayed at KEIKO Gallery this time. In addition, several tower lighting which made out of *diatomaceous earth and tabletop mobile stands will be included in this exhibition.

*diatomaceous earth is a lightweight friable siliceous material derived mainly from diatom remains.