Queenston’s RiverBrink Art Museum drew a full house Saturday when master printmaker Naoko Matsubara unveiled her collection of vivid woodcuts.
The May 17 exhibition, “Tales in Line and Colour,” unveiled Matsubara’s nature-rich prints, curated by director Debra Antoncic, depicting scenes and characters from Japanese folklore.
Visual artist and dancer Noriko Yamamoto performed an accompanied dance in the gallery set to traditional Japanese instruments.
Matsubara studied art in Japan, then travelled to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh as a graduate student in 1961, when she discovered her connection to woodblock painting.
“The dean said to me, I need to dig deep and find something I love, and I couldn’t find that for many months and I was scared,” said Matsubara.
“Then one day, someone said there will be a big concert. Would you like to go? And that was a Ravi Shankar concert,” she said, referring to the late Indian sitarist and composer, who, starting in the ’60s, became known as the world’s most famous expert of Indian classical music.
“The music was great, his presence was great,” said Matsubara.
“And the next day, when I went back to my studio, I told everybody, ‘Can you find some wood? I want to make woodcuts of that impression,'” said Matsubara.
From there, Matsubara fell in love with the art form and has continued for over 60 years since then.
Antoncic said the show distills six decades of experimentation into a single hallway.
“It’s been my great pleasure to work with Naoko in assembling this exhibition,” said Antoncic.
Niagara painter Geoff Farnsworth attended the exhibition and voiced his perspective on Yamamoto’s dance performance.
“It feels kind of timeless, it sort of ended up somewhere else, but it’s beautiful,” said Farnsworth.
After the performance, many stayed for sushi, wine and a closer look at Konjaku Monogatarishū, Matsubara’s woodcut cycle based on 12th-century Japanese tales.
Riverbrink will screen three short films about Japanese papermaking on May 31 and host an artist talk with Matsubara on June 21. Kids’ art camps run in July and August, while the On the Brink outdoor installation weekend returns Aug. 30 and 31.
