THE ARTISTS:

From THE NETHERLANDS, Ralph Weijburgs' etchings are of islands surrounding Africa, the Caribbean Islands, and ‘Local Beauties from Exotic Countries, around the world. Weijburg on his art: "My prints tell stories by melding images and diagrams of the geography, animals, plants, architecture, and the people of the places I explore."
Weijburg was born in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1952. While studying social geography and cartography at the University of Utrecht, Weijburg became interested in printmaking and graphic arts, and switched to the Academy of Fine Arts.

JAPANESE ARTISTS Susumu Endo, Katsunori Hamanishi and Yoshikatsu Tamekanes’ work includes woodblock/collograph, mezzotint and lithography.

Now living in the Tokyo area, Hamanishi's primary focus is mezzotint printmaking. His works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the MOMA in New York; the Art Institute, Chicago; the Library of Congress, DC; Taipei Fine Arts National Museum; Krakow National Museum; Osaka National Museum of Art; and others. In September 2004 he was honored in a two-man show along with venerated mezzotint artist Yozo Hamani at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, where he presented a demonstration of his own techniques.

Tamekane is essentially a woodblock printer, but adds texture to his woodblock images using collographic techniques. Born in 1959, Yoshikatsu Tamekane studied at Sokei Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo. From 1991 to 1994 he lived in Paris while studying art at the Musee d’Orsay, the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou. He is a member of the Japan Print Association and has shown ten consecutive years in the prestigious CWAJ Print Show. In 2006 his work “A Winter Memory” became part of the permanent collection of the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach, Florida.


Space and Space Series
© Susumu Endo

Endo blends photographic and non-photographic processes via computer, mixing the reality of the natural landscape with abstraction to create a singular surrealistic image – a mingling of nature and a space continuum. Endo graduated from the Kuwasawa Design School in 1962 and then spent 5 years in a small design studio. His art soon became recognized and after producing a calendar for Audio-Technica, his images have appeared commercially and in the collections of museums throughout Europe, the United States and Japan. His images display a skill and beauty that challenge our sense of reality.

AUSTRALIAN artist Jorg Schmeisser's etchings draw from locations in Japan, Angkor Wat, the Antarctic, Australia, the Himalayas and others. His work is known for technical excellence, beauty and precision of detail. Schmeisser was born in 1942 in Stolp, Pomerania, now Poland; grew up and went to art school in Hamburg before moving to Japan for postgraduate studies. He has established homes in Canberra, Australia and Kyoto, Japan where he teaches and creates his work.


GALLERY STATEMENT:
"Our international collection of fine art focuses on artists from Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States. We work directly with the artists featured in our gallery to insure that the artwork we carry is of the finest quality. We strive to learn as much as possible about the artist and to follow his/her career and development. Each piece of artwork has a story. We do our best to know and to understand the nature of the work, the artist's philosophy in creating it, and the way it fits into the art world as a whole."