Art from the Garden: Ceramics and Sculptures by Marc Peter Keane  

Landscape architect Marc Peter Keane's artworks are all, in one way or another, intersections with the garden. His artwork draws from the traditional culture of Japan, such as the way his ceramics are fired unglazed in a wood-fired kiln (anagama), and yet they are also unlike any traditional Japanese forms. He incorporates garden materials such as leaves and fine gravel into the works, and in part by incorporating design ideas from the garden, like the carefully balancing of wildness and control.

The Japanese art of bontei, or tray gardens, is a micro-cosmos of the natural world made from the simplest of objects. Designed as the barest reflection of the natural landscape, stones and plants are presented on trays in ways that give particular attention to time and space. Whether it be stillness or motion, something old or something new, or even something timeless, bontei is constantly redefining its space in traditional and nontraditional forms.

Landscape architecture Marc Peter Keane's artworks are all, in one way or another, intersections with the garden. They incorporate materials from the garden, such as the leaves and fine granite gravel that he uses in making ceramics, and they also incorporate ideas from the garden, such as the interplay between control and wildness (shinsō) that is used as a theme in his tray gardens.

Keane’s artwork draws from the traditional culture of Japan, such as the way his ceramics are fired unglazed in a wood-fired kiln (anagama), and yet they are also unlike any traditional Japanese forms. Come connect with nature in a new way through these unique and captivating reflections of the natural world!

The exhibition is free and open to the public. The exhibition will run from November 15 through December 27 and will be open to the public during regular JICC hours, 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday. The JICC will be closed on November 23 & 24, and December 25 in observance of holidays.

About the Artist

Marc Peter Keane is a landscape architect, writer, and artist based in Ithaca, NY. Having lived and worked in Kyoto for nearly 20 years, Keane’s work is heavily influenced by the aesthetics and culture of Japan. As a landscape architect, Keane's work focuses on gardens. Like poetry, sculpture, and painting, Keane sees gardens as being both aesthetic and allegorical compositions. Over the past 15 years, he has designed and built numerous gardens, ranging from a 115 square meter tea garden for Hidenin Temple in Kyoto, to a 6 acre park, called Awanosato, for a private company in Tokushima. His land-art installation for the year 2000 Kyoto Arts Festival, called Omega Point, won the Grand Prize for that year and the recently built Tiger Glen Garden at the Johnson Museum of Art won the gold A’Design Award (Como, Italy). As an artist, Keane creates works that are inspired by nature and based on the long history of Japanese arts and crafts.