Toru Fukuda
Born 1994, Hokkaido Prefecture
Inlaid woodwork ( mokuzogan ) involves hand-cutting wood and inlaying it. Toru Fukuda began working with the technique when he was a student at an arts and crafts high school. It seemed to him that the variously colored pieces of wood could also be used for paintings, and he “felt comfortable with the repetitive, puzzle -like process” of carving a piece of wood for the body and then fitting other pieces of wood into it. After learning traditional sashimono techniques in Kyoto, he began practicing inlaid woodwork in earnest around the age of 20. While this technique is generally used for two-dimensional compositions, Fukuda has developed it as a three-dimensional art form. In After Rain , the parts patterned with wings on the Pokémon called Beautifly are carved with slightly different curvatures according to the position where they are to be fitted, infusing the thin and delicate piece with a supple sense of vitality.
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