New Ideas, New Interactions

Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1942. He studied painting with Satoshi Ogawa during his adolescence. In 1963, he came to the United States to continue his studies at Chouinard Art Institute when his introduction to Fred Marer drew him to sculptural ceramics. Kaneko proceeded to study with Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman in California during the time now defined as The Contemporary Ceramics Movement in America. The following decade, Kaneko taught at some of the nation’s leading art schools, including Scripps College, Rhode Island School of Design, and Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Based in Omaha, Nebraska since 1986, Kaneko has worked at several experimental studios, including European Ceramic Work Center in The Netherlands, Otsuka Ohmi Ceramic Company in Japan; Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia, PA; Bullseye Glass in Portland, OR; Acadia Summer Arts Program in Bar Harbor, ME; Derix Glasstudios in Taunusstein, Germany, and Aguacate in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Over the course of his career he has also partnered with industrial facilities to realize large-scale, hand-built sculptures.

Kaneko is increasingly drawn to installations that promote civic interaction, realizing over seventy public art commissions from 1985 to present. Many are large-scale permanent installations that can be seen across the United States and internationally in Toronto, Canada, Shanghai, China, Jakarta, Indonesia, and multiple cities in Japan.

His artwork appears in numerous international and national solo and group exhibitions annually and is included in more than eighty museum collections. Kaneko received Commendation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Master of the Media from the James Renwick Alliance, Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship from the American Craft Council, Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska, the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, the Royal College of Art in London, and the University of Pécs in Hungary.

The artist has also designed three opera productions for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (2006), Beethoven’s Fidelio (2008), and Mozart’s The Magic Flute (2012), which toured throughout the United States.

https://www.junkaneko.com/

Keiko Hara was born in North Korea to Japanese parents, but when she was only three years old her family moved to Japan, where she was raised. She began her art education studying painting and drawing at Gendai Art School, Tokyo and painting at Oita-Kenritsu Art College, Oita. In 1971, she travelled to the United States and completed a BFA degree in painting from Mississippi University for Women. In the 1970s she completed masters degrees in printmaking from University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She moved to Walla Walla, Washington in 1985 where she was a professor of art and the Chair of the Art Department at Whitman College until her retirement as a Professor Emeritus in 2006. She continues to live and make art in Walla Walla.

Over the course of her prolific career, Hara has exhibited her work extensively throughout the US and Japan, participating in more than 150 solo and group exhibitions.  She is the recipient of numerous awards and residency fellowships including Pilchuck Glass School, Artist Trust, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and Research Teaching Fellowships at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan.  She has led printmaking workshops and lectured in the US and Japan for decades and curated traveling exhibitions featuring Japanese and American printmakers.

The artist’s work is featured in many collections including Harborview Medical Center, Microsoft, IBM Corporation, AT & T Company, and Yale New Haven Hospital. She is featured in the collections of national and regional museums that include the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Art, Bellevue Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University in Pullman, and Jundt Art Museum at Gonzaga University in Spokane. Hara has translated her vibrant prints and paintings into mixed media and glass sculptural works for Portland, Oregon, Washington State Arts Commission and Whitman College.

Describing Keiko Hara’s art, the Washington State Arts Commission states it “is about facing and examining life through her own personal language – something which cannot be done in any way other than art, in her opinion.”

https://www.keikohara.com/

Baso Fibonacci is a painter and muralist living and working in the SODO neighborhood of Seattle, at the confluence of the city’s Industrial District, transportation corridors and warehouses converted to artists’ live/work. His name is a chosen one, not his given name, and illustrates the dualities he explores in his art. “Baso” is taken from a Chinese monk and early practitioner of Zen Buddhism, and “Fibonacci” from Leonardo Fibonacci, the Italian mathematician.

Baso spent his childhood on Tiger Mountain, one of the foothills of the Cascade Range, and an environment with rich stands of western red cedar and Douglas fir, riparian forests, rocky summit outcrops, wetland meadows, and abundant wildlife species such as cougar, bobcat, elk, and pygmy owl. His artistic practice expresses the dichotomy of being raised in nature and living in the city.

The mural painted for Skanska, entitled Ancient Forest, reflects the natural environment of his upbringing. Exploring the ecology of the foothills, he saw all the animals represented in the mural’s imagery at one time or another as he was growing up. One of Baso’s most well known murals also uses wildlife-inspired imagery. Adjacent to the SODO light rail corridor, Escaping a Burning Culture, a large-scale mural collaboration with artist Jean Nagai, features a wolf fleeing a giant blaze.  Influenced by reports about the effects of wildfires on the animals of the forests, the wolf is also a metaphor in this composition for the plight of artists struggling to find a place in a changing and increasingly expensive city.

His studio art practice and recent installation work reflects the nature of the city, which the artist believes also has its own beauty. His latest paintings communicate the humanity and dignity of urban dwellers, many unhoused and living with drug addiction and poverty. His mixed media installations using foils invite viewers to visualize and humanize the magnitude of the loss of life due to fentanyl use, hopefully to build greater empathy and understanding.

Baso's goal in his work is to talk about life in a visually subtle way.

https://www.instagram.com/basofibonacci/?hl=en

As artists, Nathan Warner and Buck Hubach have always sought to engage the public in meaningful dialogue about the interplay between space, form, and human experience. The installation at The Eight, represents an extension of this vision — an exploration of how art can transform environments and invite reflection on our shared surroundings.

The Eight itself, with its architectural presence and dynamic relationship to the city, served as both inspiration and canvas. This installation was designed to respond to the unique character of the space, weaving together elements of light, texture, and movement to create an immersive experience. Utilizing natural materials such as bronze, fiberglass, and LED light, the artists aimed to craft a work that harmonizes with both the organic and constructed aspects of the environment.

At its core, the piece is about connection—between people, between the past and present, and between the built environment and the natural world. The artists hope that visitors will not only engage with the work but also see it as an invitation to pause, reflect, and discover new perspectives within the familiar.

Creating this installation has been a deeply rewarding process, and the artists are honored to contribute to the vibrant artistic landscape of Greater Seattle. Nathan and Buck are grateful to The Eight and its community for providing the opportunity to bring this vision to life.

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