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Black Eye Gallery is pleased to announce the September 2017 exhibition: WABI- SABI by Damien Drew. The Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi is an appreciation of a transient and understated  beauty in the modest, imperfect, ephemeral or decayed. Drew’s exhibition expresses this  notion through his perspective of modern day Japan. Japan has one of the world’s largest economies and a population that is shrinking due to  low birthrates. With employment opportunities predominantly found in large urban centres  there has been a marked decline in rural regions. Drew’s images seek to document that which  is temporary and to celebrate its beauty in turn. The viewer is invited to consider details  and qualities in paired scenes that may be inconspicuous, congruent or contrasting. In a  world that is increasingly homogenised through global retail chains, Drew carefully observes the melancholy beauty of the many towns and villages that have now become neglected. “We ...

Illustration: Dennis Potter. Big Boro Japan and Japanese culture has both fascinated and inspired creative individuals across the planet for generations. The defined nature of Japanese culture, both in the visual and in the conceptual, lends itself to a broad interpretation and reinterpretation by artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. The artist Dennis Potter is inspired by a number of different elements of Japanese, and East Asian culture. He has travelled and lived in a number of environments through East Asia, and has been correspondingly influenced within his creative work by those environments. Illustration: Dennis Potter. Big Boro , detail One specifically Japanese inspired creative theme that Dennis has used in his work, is that of the kimono, more specifically the hakui, which is a kimono worn by Buddhist pilgrims who circumambulate the Japanese island of Shikoku. This specific and simple garment works as a metaphor for experience and memory, because it is inscri...