Much like cracks in ceramics, a person's challenges and history should be celebrated as important aspects of life and identity, says Vancouver-based Japanese Kintsugi artist Naoko Fukumaru.

“Through my Kintsugi we see something once broken transformed into something beautiful, sometimes more beautiful because it was broken. This transformative spirit of Kintsugi has an emotional impact on people that echoes within, helping us to recognize and process and release our own internal pressures and experiences,” says Fukumaru, who immigrated to Canada in 2018.

Kintsugi pottery is the Japanese art of golden joinery; it’s a 500-year-old method of restoring damaged ceramics with gold. This method enhances the damaged ceramic’s beauty and value by celebrating their imperfection, impermanence and incompleteness.

“With the Coronavirus the entire planet has been experiencing an unprecedented crisis, with extreme losses and significant challenges on many levels,” says Fukumara.

Origins and background

She was born into a third-generation antique auction house family. In Kyoto, her great-grandfather started the businesses by collecting broken objects and repairing them at home. Growing up, she was surrounded by fine arts and antiques. At an early age, she experimented with broken objects – a passion she built into a career – a Kintsugi artist and ceramic and glass restoration expert.

Fukumaru graduated from West Dean College, England in 2000, with a post-graduate diploma in Conservation of Glass, Ceramics and related materials. In her two-decade career, she has worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum and other institutions around the world. She applies her experience of Western and European invisible restoration with Kintsugi.

“I have been involved in major restoration, conservation and fabrication projects including The Last Supper.

She left Japan and lived in various countries. She finally found her spiritual home in Canada where she could create art.

Her Kintsugi work will be shown at Sunzen Art Gallery in Vancouver for two months starting from November 28 and as part of the tea ceremonial performance of Lam Wong at the Polygon Gallery. Upcoming Kintsugi exhibitions include the Nitobe Memorial Garden in 2021 and at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in 2022.