Exhibtion: Junko Morimoto: My Work - My Journey
ACU National Gallery at Strathfield
6th - 29th October 2005
Open on Monday - Saturday 11:00am - 4:00pm
ACU National Gallery: 25A Barker Road, STRATHFIELD, NSW 2135
Entrance: Gate 3, Visual Arts Building A
Ph: (02) 9701 4000
Junko Morimoto is a children's book artist and well known for her popular and award wining books such as The White Crane, The Inch Boy, A Piece of Straw, Kojuro and the Bears and The Two Bullies. Publishing fourteen books, they are read around the world.
Morimoto was born in Hiroshima Japan in 1932. She originally studied western style painting at Kyoto University of Fine Art. Later she opened children's art studio in Osaka. She also taught art at a junior high school in the city of Katano where she worked on a major illustration project on the city's history book.
Her children's book artist career started when she migrated to Australia in 1982. At the time she was 'just' fifty years old. Over the last two decades, Morimoto has visited schools around Australia and met thousands of children. Also as a survivor of Atomic bomb holocaust in Hiroshima, she has given talks on her witness account of the holocaust at numerous school visits.
Morimoto is also a practicing Japanese Sumi-ink painting artist. In 1992, she traveled across Australia from Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne and she fell in love with the landscapes of Australia's outback country. She produced paintings of her impression of the great landscapes in traditional black and white Sumi-ink style.
The exhibition will review her works in both fields of her art. Her works in children's books and Sumi-ink pictures will represent over two decades of history of her encounter with Australia.
Morimoto's art have been enlightening for Australians, for children and adults, giving insight to the Japanese culture through her works.