Nobuko Hiroi, visiting artist

Artist talk with Nobuko Hiroi, Naoko Furue and Jennifer Green
Friday, Sept 28th, 1PM part of Nova Scotia Culture Days

Travelling Textiles is an exhibition celebrating the intimate and sensorial nature of textiles in our everyday life. Inspired by her travels researching traditional textiles in her native Japan, Hiroi integrates the deeply embedded tactile knowledge that she witnessed in her approach to making. She offers, “Visual images cultivated by touch form the themes of my work. The hands and eyes that appear in my work were inspired by this connection.” In this exhibition, Hiroi utilizes the techniques of weaving, braiding, sewing, and felting, on fibre materials as diverse as wool, silk, metal and shell, to present a collection of textile objects that span her forty-year career.

Nobuko Hiroi is a distinguished textile artist from Kyoto, Japan. Surrounded by a rich natural environment there, she has cultivated her artistic sensibility and developed her practice alongside the historical and cultural traditions of the region. Hiroi’s practice is deeply influenced by both local and international travel and her direct experiences. Since 1970, Hiroi has been conducting field research of bast fibre spinning and weaving. This research culminated in her 1999 book entitled, Base to Tip, Bast Fibre Weaving in Japan and its Neighbouring Countries. Hiroi has exhibited her textile works internationally in Belgium, Poland, Lithuania and Australia. Travelling Textiles will mark her first solo exhibition in Canada.