Chiyoko Tanaka
Textile
Chiyoko Tanaka is a weaver who sees her work as part of a continuum reflecting the tradition of the woven silk textiles of Kyoto. The process of weaving is central to her work, the act of weaving being an accumulation of weft threads, representing time passing. Once woven, the cloth is laid on the ground and Tanaka commences to rub the fabric over and over with particular tools like brick or white stone. This is a process she describes as ‘Grinding’. An additional colouring effect is achieved by the application of certain soils or charcoal.
1965 Graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts
Solo exhibitions
1980 Box Gallery, Nagoya
1981 Gallery Gallery, Kyoto / '84 - '93, '95, '98, '02
1982 Sanshundo Gallery, Tokyo
1986 Hari Gallery, Kyoto
1987 Gallery Maronie, Kyoto
2002 Art Life Mitsuhashi, Kyoto / Wacoal Ginza Art Space, Tokyo
2003 Gallery NAF, Nagoya
2012 vol.43 "Rubbed Textiles: Passage to the Transparent Infinity" Gallery NAO MASAKI
Major group exhibitions
1987 Expression of Contemporary Weaving Exhibition ( Spiral Wacoal Art Centre, Tokyo)
'87 Selected Art Exhibition ( Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto)
1988 Art Now '88 (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe)
The 6th International Textile Triennial Exhibition ( Central Textile Museum, Lodz, Poland)
1992-'93 Kohyama and Tanaka Contemporary Ceramics and Textile Art from Japan (Prinseshof Museum, The Netherlands / Kunstmuseum Hamburg, Germany 1993 Benno Premesela Collection Exhibition ( Stedelijk Museum Stedelijk Museum, Holland)
1993-'94 Focus on Fiber Art: Selection from the Growing 20th Century Collection ( Art Institute of Chicago, USA)
1996 Cinq Maginiens Textile du Japon Exhibition ( Passage de Retz, France)
1996-'97 Textile Wizards from Japan Exhibition ( Israel Museum, Israel)
1997 The 10th Wave: A Celebration of the Brown Grotta gallery's 10th Anniversary( Brown Grotta Gallery, USA)
1998-'01 Structure and Surface: Contemporary Japanese Textiles( Museum of Modern Art, New York; Saint Louis Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA 1999 Seventy Designers in Tribute to Izzika Gaon( Israel Museum of Art, Israel)
2000 Celebration Exhibition of the 120th Anniversary of Kyoto City University of Arts ( Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto / Tenshin Memorial Itsuura Museum of Art, Ibaraki, Japan)
＜Awards＞
1988 Bronze Prize, 6th International Textile Triennial Exhibition, Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland.
＜Major public collections＞
Kunstmuseum Hamburg (Germany), Art Institute of Chicago (USA), St. Louis Art Museum (USA), Stedelijk Museum (Netherlands), Büritzer Collection (USA), Israel Museum (Israel), Passage de Retz (France).
