“INK MARBLING”

The KURA gallery of ISSEY MIYAKE KYOTO presents KURA Exhibition “INK MARBLING.”

Stones peek out from beneath a murmuring stream, as though they are taking a rest from their long journey from mountain to sea, and from rocks to sand. Some are round and smooth, and others long and slender. No two have the same shape.

The theme of ISSEY MIYAKE Autumn/Winter 2021/22 collection is “As the Way It Comes to Be.” Various expressions of nature that continue to live there are put into a single piece of cloth.

This exhibition introduces “suminagashi (ink marbling)” which is one of the dyeing techniques used in the collection. Craftspeople drop and speckle dye solutions over a large, shallow tray of water, where the dye solutions spread out freely and form an organic pattern, and then transfer that pattern directly onto a clean fabric by soaking it up. Each pattern is one of a kind created skillfully and fluently by hand at a studio in Kyoto.

At the venue, a piece of suminagashi fabric is laid out like a stream flowing. Expressions of the glimmer on the water surface and the bubbles that come up from between the stones are brought forward lively with special lighting, in addition to a video of the suminagashi technique.

This exhibition presents the strength of nature and the beauty of the technique in a simple ensemble of fabric, light, and images.