Patrick R. Clark Blog: Ribbonesia’s Animal and Plant Life Created Entirely by Ribbon

Monday, June 19, 2017

Ribbonesia’s Animal and Plant Life Created Entirely by Ribbon

If you’re wrapping a gift or a present in Japan, surely you’re familiar with the multi-layered art of packaging. Maybe you begin with cellophane, move on tissue, transition to wrapping paper and, before you place it in the special gift bag you apply a decorative ribbon. It’s this “familiar but unessential” material, the ribbon, that caught the eyes of creatives Baku Maeda and Toru Yoshikawa, who went on to form their company Ribbonesia.

Now in its 7th year, Ribbonesia is staging an exhibition of animal and sea life-inspired works titled Murmur. Just like paintings are comprised of hundreds of brushstrokes, the three-dimensional canvases and sculptures are made from hundreds of twists and folds, each an intentional use of the tension and reflectiveness of the ribbon.

Murmur is on display at the Tokyo gallery (Place) by method (map)in Shibuya. It’s on view through July 8th, 2017.

Later this year, Ribbonesia is also planning on rebooting their line of ribbon brooches and wearables, which we were big fans of. So there’s that to look forward to.