Surrealist exhibits in Eugene

Published 12:00 am Friday, December 19, 2014

Surrealist Ryo Toyonaga’s first major museum exhibition, “Awakening,” continues its run at Eugene’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art through December and into early January.

“Awakening,” which displays twenty years of Toyonaga’s ceramic and mixed-media sculpture, drawing and painting, opened Oct. 11 and was organized by Lawrence Fong, the JSMA’s former curator of American and Pacific Northwest art. Fong proposed the exhibition after visiting Toyonaga’s studios in New York.

“It’s a risk for anyone to show in a region where they are not known,” Fong said. “But I thought there would be interest — that there was something in his art we could build on.”

Toyonaga was born in Matsuyama, Japan, in 1960. After earning his degree in psychology from the National University of Shinshu, Japan, he moved to New York City in 1986.

Once exclusively a clay sculptor, Toyonaga’s imagination evolved and he began experimenting with other materials, including red wax in 2002 and bronze and aluminum casting in 2004. In 2005, he began exploring large-scale papier-mâché out of a desire to expand the perception and scale of his works. Toyonaga then moved to drawing in 2006 and has been concentrating on large-scale acrylic paintings since 2010, according to JSMA.

“Awakening” features 19 medium- and large-scale paintings and drawings and a selection of ceramic and papier-mâché sculptures.

“Toyonaga’s imagery is drawn from a wellspring of recurrent dreams,” Fong said. “The result is a surprisingly original world that fuses technology and nature into mysterious hybrid forms.”

Accompanying the exhibition are a catalog of images of Toyonaga’s work and essays by Fong, art historian Suzanne Ramljak and historian, gallerist and collector Helen Drutt English.

“Awakening” will be on exhibit at the JSMA until Jan. 4. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and free to those 18 and younger, JSMA members, college students with ID, and University of Oregon faculty, staff and students. For more information, go to www.jsma.uoregon.edu or call 541-346-3027.

— Reporter: 541-383-0350, kmccool@bendbulletin.com