OPENING: Hiroshi Yamano exhibition “East Meets West” kicks off at Studio Inferno in New Orleans

Opening on May 9th at the Studio Inferno in New Orleans, an exhibition of Hiroshi Yamano’s artwork entitled “East Meets West” will kick off with an opening reception at 6 PM. The show is being presented as a Japanese artist’s narrative of Western culture’s influence on his life. Having been inspired to work with glass after seeing a Scandinavian exhibit in Kyoto in 1975, Yamano’s experience with the medium was shaped by education both in the U.S and Japan. Although his exposure to glass was split between East and West, he was strongly influenced by his studies with Studio Glass pioneer Marvin Lipofsky at the California College of Arts and Crafts, while his technical skills were honed at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute.

Yamano has served as an instructor at the Pilchuck School of Glass, and as a lecturer at the Glass Art Society in Mexico, Aus Glass Conference in Australia and Vanersborg Glass Festival in Sweden. Yamano first began exploring Japanese and American metaphors in his glass art after he developed a technique of fusing and working the surface of glass from a method used in Japanese metal work. In his series, “From East to West,” and throughout his body of work, fish have special symbolic signifance in their reoccuring form and abstractions in his sculptures. The Fish 013 depicts an aquarium of fish shadows across a large copper shape that encases a glass globe of blue-green, resembling the earth. 

"I am a fish," he states in his artist bio, "who is always looking for something. I am a fish who cannot stop swimming until my body stops moving. Maybe I will swim forever, like the universe." His ongoing travels to different countries in the past 27 years allow him to cross cultural lines, and to keep developing and expanding the symbols and nuances in his work. 

This Thursday, Yamano will also give a lecture from 6 - 8 PM at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, followed by a demo at Studio Inferno from 10 PM to 1 AM. He will demo two more times the next day at YaYa Creative Glass on Friday, May 8th.