PRESS RELEASE■Title：Collection Exhibition

Glass Art: Flora Times Three■Dates : Saturday, 21 May 2022－Sunday, 13 November 2022
■Hours : 9:30-18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays )*Latest admission is 30 minutes before closing■Closed : First and Third Wednesdays, 8 June 2022 (except for 1 June)■Venue : Toyama Glass Art Museum 4F Exhibition Room 4 & Transparent Storage■Admission : <General Public & College Student> 200 yen (170 yen)
*Price in brackets for groups of 20 or more.
*Admission fee is free for high school students and younger.
*Tickets also allow admission to the Glass Art Garden at the 6 floor.
■Number of works : 15 pieces■Organizer : Toyama Glass Art Museum

Inquiry:
Toyama Glass Art Museum
E-mail: bijutsukan-01@city,toyama.lg.jp

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PRESS RELEASE■Overview
This exhibition presents fifteen pieces from the permanent collection of the Toyama Glass ArtMuseum, offering three different perspectives on floral themes in glass art.
Flowering plants that put down sturdy roots in the soil, from time to time produce lovely
blooms, and eventually return to the earth, serve as living, breathing companions for us.
Represented in innumerable works of art across every genre since antiquity, they have provided
multifaceted motifs encompassing allegory and symbolism, decoration and design.
Botanical forms and images are also incorporated in myriad ways in contemporary glass art, theirexpression ranging from works that seek formative inspiration from herbaceous plants, to others
that overlay the morphology and extraordinary life force of plants on the work’s conceptual base,and yet others that use floral forms as metaphors for formless things like memories and thoughts.
“Flora,” from the Roman goddess governing flowers and fertility, refers to the plant life of aparticular region. Join us in this attempt, through the works here, to identify in contemporary
glass art three different takes on floral expression: “Flower forms and foliage shapes,”“Blossoming vitality,” and “Floral memories.”
Section 1: Flower forms and foliage shapes
This section presents works incorporating floral design elements. Here, aspects of plants such as
their morphology, structure, and unique textures serve as sources of sculptural inspiration for arange of works in glass, the artists skillfully aligning these botanical features with the properties ofthe materials they work in to create works of soft, delicate appearance, and also works presenting
their subject with bold abstraction that reveals its aesthetic essence. What these diverse pieces
share is the evocative expression of botanical form.
Section 2: Blossoming vitality
At first glance quiet and still, plants possess within them an incredible vitality that enables themto sprout leaves, bloom, and produce fruit. This section showcases works that while related toplants, also feature different, overlapping images. The large-scale forms of flower petals and organs
elevate these works to powerful specimens of sculptural design, the look of the plants resonatingwith concepts expressing abundance and the energy of the natural world. The sheer vitality ofthese abstract forms is a force to be reckoned with.
Section 3: Floral memories
This section features two installations added to the collection in recent years, containing glass
flowers crafted with extraordinary delicacy, and the remains of plants baked to white ash. Both areimbued with their respective creator’s intense feelings on things they notice being lost in their dayto-day lives, and personal memories connecting them with places where the plants once lived.
The artists featured in this section view glass, a material that endures largely unchanged overtime, as a medium for preserving and recording. Things that do change over time, are captured
within the glass.

Inquiry:
Toyama Glass Art Museum
E-mail: bijutsukan-01@city,toyama.lg.jp

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PRESS RELEASE■Related Programs
Curator’s Talk
The exhibition curator gives a talk to introduce the show. (Language: Japanese)
Date & time: 14:00- 29 May, 11, 26 June, 9, 24 July, 13, 28 August, 10, 25 September, 8, 23
October, 5 November2022
Venue: Toyama Glass Art Museum* No reservation*These talk events are all in Japanese.

■Image of works

1．NISHI Etsuko, Charming Lady, 2013,

２．Pavel HLAVA, Leaf Colourful,

Photo: SAIKI Taku

1998, Photo: SAIKI Taku

3．TASHIMA Etsuko, Cornucopia 99-X,
1999, Photo: SAIKI Taku

4．SASAKI Rui, Subtle Intimacy, 2019, Photo: OKAMURA Kichiro
All of the works listed above are collection of Toyama Glass Art Museum.

Inquiry:Toyama Glass Art Museum
E-mail: bijutsukan-01@city,toyama.lg.jp

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