We are pleased to present “TATTOO,” a solo exhibition by Shun Kumagai, on view from Saturday, June 13 through Sunday, June 28.

Kumagai has developed a distinctive glass casting practice based on adaptations of the lost-wax casting technique, incorporating foreign materials such as soil, metal, and air bubbles into the body of the glass itself. Evoking the presence of Roman glass, his works emerge through a process that intertwines time, history, and the memory of materials, while embracing the unpredictability that occurs within kilns exceeding 1000°C.

In this exhibition, Kumagai turns his attention to the act of “decoration.” Fine incisions, traces of handwork layered like scales, or conversely, the stripping away of marks and residues that had previously remained on the surface of the works. Reflecting on the process of creating this exhibition, Kumagai notes:

“As I continued working, the act of decoration gradually revealed itself to be more than superficial ornamentation. It became an act of reconnecting bodily sensations and memories accumulated through everyday experiences—growing rice, repairing a house, traveling through foreign lands—into the form of the vessel.”

Historically, tattooing has functioned not only as bodily decoration, but also as a marker of prayer, memory, and connection to community. The time lived in a particular place, the experiences one has passed through, faith and fear alike—patterns inscribed onto the skin have existed not merely as ornament, but as traces that speak of where a person is rooted and how they have lived.

Just as tattoos embed memory into the skin, vessels and objects that accompany human life likewise accumulate time and experience within themselves. The repeated motifs across the surfaces of Kumagai’s works, along with mark-making reminiscent of scars, carry an almost indigenous humidity, evoking for the viewer layered accumulations of time.