Curated by Makiko Hara + Sherri Kajiwara
February 17 - August 17, 2024
Come enter the colorful, eccentric world of multi-disciplinary artist Setsuko Piroche
Born in Japan in 1933 (nee Hane), in her formative years, Setsuko was trained in the Nihonga style of traditional Japanese painting in pigment. She expanded her visual arts education abroad and her global adventures culminated in settling in British Columbia in 1967 where she discovered Indigenous weaving. Her talents diversified into set decoration and printmaking and she exploded onto the Canadian art scene in the 1970s with her woven sculptures. Despite exclusion from the contemporary art world after that, Setsuko continued to weave her delightful creations and work with like-minded community artists. Until the early 2000s, she illustrated five children’s storybooks with a particularly striking cover for The Daughters of the Star from Thirty Indian Legends by Margaret Bemister, which she also translated for publication in Japan. Now in her 90s and declining with dementia, we honour the curious creations of this colourful artist. In this exhibition we invite you to experience how Setsuko Piroche has woven her cultural, international, and creative influences and her indefatigable sense of curiosity into woven sculpture, suspensions, and ceramics, all set against a backdrop of her nihonga style paintings.