STEWART JOEL
Etchings, lithographs, watercolours. Born 1959 California. University of Southern California. Lived in Kyoto since 1987.
Permanent Collections: the Portland Art Museum; the Allen Memorial Museum, Ohio; the Los Angeles County Museum; the collection of Morgan Stanley in Japan. Solo exhibitions in Japan and the USA.
Stewart is inspired by the “typically Japanese” themes, be they traditional or modern: a winter scene with old farm houses, a row of Japanese umbrellas drying after the rain, a grouping of pickle barrels lined up and stacked in a charmingly haphazard fashion, a stone lantern in the snow, and more recently the most Japanese image of them all: cherry blossom, just a few blooms magnified many times to make a most spectacular print. He has become very interested in the texture of ceramic, and his recent depictions of pots and vases have an extraordinary three-dimensional quality. His prints tend to be etchings or colour aquatints but Stewart does not restrict himself to prints. He uses watercolour when he ventures outside to recreate the countryside around Kyoto. His most recent project has been the completion of several large imagery of abstract and reality juxtaposed on each side of hand-made byoubu, or Japanese screens.
