Toru Sugita

Toru Sugita Recent Sketchbooks

Although my main art practice is printmaking with photographical subjects of cityscapes, I consider drawing of surrounding subjects as the core of my creative process. I have been drawing of my native town in Japan last several years. Each time I go back to Japan in summer time, it has been too hot in the daytime. I wake up early morning to walk around my old neighborhood to draw with watercolor. My hometown Yasu is where the old street looks much the same, the visually integrity of place intact, but the old local community became quiet because the new generation has moved away. Each time I noticed new subject to draw as old house demolished to open new visual. I capture texture and color of houses and streets delineated by morning light. While drawing I connect to my childhood memories, and I realize the space is constantly changing. Last summer during shelter-in-place order, I took online class - Intro to 3D Design and Sculpture. One of assignments was “Nature Made,” which was to assemble temporally 3D structure by natural objects. I looked around my neighborhood of Albany to collect natural objects, including many eucalyptus barks from Albany Hill. This assignment shifted my interest from geometric and architectural elements to organic shapes and textures. I see eucalyptus trees with falling barks have an intricate mixture of organic and geometric beauty. Gravity and time interact with the energy of the tree and contribute to the temporary and ephemeral structure. I see them as the extension of old houses in my native town.

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Yasu, Japan

Albany Hill