Honma Hideaki

This solo exhibition commemorates Honma Hideaki’s 35^th year as an artist. Born in 1959, Honma is his generation’s leading sculptor in bamboo art.

Honma Hideaki’s uncle, the pioneering bamboo artist Honma Kazuaki, had no children, so he adopted Hideaki (who loved to draw and work with his hands) as his son, student, and heir to the family’s bamboo business. The family business was booming at the time, so Honma did not go through a traditional apprenticeship but was immediately put to work harvesting bamboo and preparing material for older employees. Honma now considers himself fortunate not to have undergone formal training before he started creating works of his own because it freed him from the traditional thinking process around how bamboo art is “supposed” to be made.

Honma’s process involves (1) sketching out ideas; (2) testing out his ideas using maquettes; (3) making an armature out of wood; (4) constructing the basic structure of the sculpture out of bent bamboo; and (5) filling in this frame with woven bamboo to complete the piece. This process may seem logical to the Western audience, but it is rather unique among bamboo artists in Japan.

Honma’s art is a part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Asian Art Museum. He has won two prestigious Tokusen Awards, in 2014 and in 2018, making him one of the top-ranked bamboo artists living in Japan.