Fukumoto Shigeki was born 1946 in Shiga Prefecture and grew up in Kyoto. He studied Western painting at Kyoto City University of Arts and worked in the family kimono dyeing business until 1989. Having joined the Kyoto City University of Arts New Guinea art research expedition as a student, between 1969 and 1990 he continued investigations of South Pacific art while also devoting himself to publication in the field. Having published Melanesian Art (Kyuryudo, 1976), he began in earnest to exhibit his work as a dye artist, participating in national painting and craft exhibitions and from the late 1980s he has been active in the fields of contemporary art and fiber art, participating in international exhibitions in Switzerland, Poland, Indonesia, China, Korea and elsewhere. Based in Kyoto, he has argued that the culture of ‘somé (Japanese dyeing)’, which he puts into practice, is unique to Japan. He is also involved in lectures on dyeing and crafts theory, together with research activities at the Society of Ethno-Artists. In recent years, he has shifted from the principle of ‘suru (doing)’ to ‘naru (becoming)’ and invented ‘naruhodo-zomé‘, a dyeing method that relinquishes control to natural principles and phenomena. In 2017, he published a collection of his writing, titled in English To Dye, Perchance to Dream (Tankosha), which brings together the trajectory of his activities over 35 years of conveying the ‘beauty of Japan’.

Born 1945 in Shimizu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Fukumoto Shihoko graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 1968 with a degree in Western painting. After engaging in academic research on ethnic art in New Guinea, she began to consider the question of her own identity, studying the dyeing and weaving culture that flourished in Kyoto under TATSUMURA Heizo II. In the process, she encountered indigo and began producing her own works. Since the 1980s, she has had a number of opportunities to exhibit her indigo dye works, which combine Japanese tradition and her own techniques, at international and solo exhibitions in Europe and the USA, and has received international acclaim. In recent years, she has focused her attention on rare natural fabrics which are a condensed product of the handspun industry. She has gained a renewed appreciation of natural environment and human temperament reveled in Japan’s old and rapidly disappearing handicraft tradition, and attempts to bring this to life in her own work. In 2015, as a compilation of her activities since the beginning of her career, she published Fukumoto Shihoko: Japan Blue (Akaakasha), which was awarded the Publication Culture International Exchange Society Prize at the 50th Japan Book Design Awards. Her recent solo exhibition “Fukumoto Shihoko Exhibition: Ai no Ao (Japan Blue) 2021″ (Takashimaya Art Gallery and ARTCOURT Gallery), has revealed new developments in her series of works using old cloth.