Sumiko abandoned her earlier, celebrated nihonga florals. Instead, she presented the “Folding Series” — large sheets of handmade kōzo paper, folded thousands of times into geometric origami cranes, then unfolded and mounted. The creases trapped 1998’s particulates: dust from a pachinko parlor, ash from a student’s burned résumé, even a single dried konbu strand from her mother’s obentō .
Not a comfortable exhibition. Not a beautiful one. But necessary. ★★★★☆ (lost half a star only for the unforgivable lack of benches—my knees still ache.) If you’d like, I can also create a fictional artist biography for Kiyooka Sumiko, or describe the actual works in the “Folding Series” as if for a museum catalog. Gallery Kiyooka Sumiko 1998
Tokyo Art Observer , Issue 44 (Winter 1999 – Rediscovered Draft) Sumiko abandoned her earlier, celebrated nihonga florals
To step into Gallery Kiyooka in the autumn of 1998 was to step into a wabi-sabi fever dream—just as the economic bubble’s last colors faded from Tokyo’s corporate lobbies. Sumiko’s show was not a roar but a deliberate, devastating whisper. Not a comfortable exhibition