Artist-in-Residence

Jun Kaneko

Jun Kaneko
Jun Kaneko, set and costume design for Opera Omaha’s 2006 traveling production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Performance at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, 2009. Courtesy of Jun Kaneko Studio. Photo credit: Takashi Hatakeyama.

FWM is the site where Jun Kaneko first experimented with screenprinting. Kaneko approached FWM in 2004 to work collaboratively with him on a new project: the original fabric components for a traveling production of Madame Butterfly that he was creating for Opera Omaha. Kaneko wanted to consider the design possibilities and costume elements that were appropriate to the opera and consistent with his artistic practice.

Kaneko incorporated his signature mark-making (the strokes and hand-painted polka dots that appeared in both his first FWM project and his ceramics) into the fabric produced by FWM. The fabrics printed at FWM appeared largely in the opera’s first act; their bright colors and active patterns echoed the romance and joy of Butterfly and Pinkerton’s “wedding” and their Love Duet. This collaboration allowed Kaneko to maintain a sense of personal handiwork in a large-scale undertaking. The artist’s hand is visible in the non-uniform circles and brushstrokes of his designs. Madame Butterfly with all its magic and ceremony is a fitting and elegant work in which Kaneko’s hand and vision flourish.

Artist Bio

Japanese American, born 1942, Nagoya, Japan. Lives and works in Omaha, NE.

Celebrated as a pioneer in the field of monumental ceramics, Jun Kaneko has pursued a varied studio practice in painting, sculpture, ceramic and public art installations for over six decades. He first came to the United States in the 1960s, at first studying in Los Angeles under Peter Voulkos and other renown ceramic artists. Kaneko’s work is in over fifty museum collections throughout the world including Arabia Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Los Angeles County Art Museum, CA; Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Phoenix Art Museum, AZ, and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. The artist has designed three touring opera productions: Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (2006), Beethoven’s Fidelio (2008), and Mozart’s The Magic Flute (2012), commissioned by Opera Omaha, the San Francisco Opera, and the Washington National Opera. Kaneko has taught at some of the nation’s leading art schools, including Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI, and is one of the co-founders of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE. Kaneko has won numerous awards and accolades, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska, the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston, MA, and the Royal College of Art in London, UK.