CV in English | CV in Japanese
Painting in Japanese paper “washi” brings me immediately into the present moment. Washi has existed as a developed art form in Japan for 1500 years. The paper medium is fluid and full of challenges. My task is to find new ways of expression in an age-old tradition. Many of my paperworks are well-choreographed in my mind before I begin. Yet, when the washi fibers hit the screen and begin to swirl, I am transported into a meditative state where assumptions are suspended, and improvisation begins…that is very liberating!
Sarah Brayer is an American visual artist based in Kyoto, Japan. She is internationally known for her large-scale, poured washi paperworks and aquatint prints. In 2013, Japan’s Ministry of Culture awarded Sarah its Commissioner’s Award, Bunkacho Chokan Hyosho, for international dissemination of Japanese culture through her unique creations in Echizen washi.
Sarah’s art is in the collections of the British Museum, the National Museum of Asian Art, the New York Public Library, and the American Embassy in Tokyo, to name a few. She has been honored in Japan by being the first artist ever to exhibit her washi paperworks at Byodoin Temple, a World Heritage site dating from the Heian period, as part of Kyoto’s 1200 yr. Celebration (1992). In 2012, Brayer was invited to speak about her Luminosity series in a Japanese paper at TED in Tokyo. Sarah was named the first foreign woman cover artist for the internationally-known CWAJ Contemporary Print Show in Tokyo in 2007. In 2023, Brayer’s Lapis Waterfalls fusuma mural (eight waterfall panels created in washi) became part of the collection of Komyo-in Zen temple, Tofukuji, Kyoto. A documentary film, Confluence of Life, was made by NHK World, documenting the creation of the work. In 2021, she exhibited in a retrospective solo exhibit at Komyo-in Temple in Kyoto.
Drawn to Japanese art through raku-style ceramics and the aquatints of Mary Cassatt, the Rochester, New York native embarked on printmaking in London in 1978. The following year she received her B.A. in Art cum laude from Connecticut College and, within months, left on a backpacking journey to Japan. Becoming entranced by Kyoto, she studied Japanese woodblock printing with Toshi Yoshida (1911-1996), the son of artist Hiroshi Yoshida, before concentrating on aquatint as her preferred medium. She had her first exhibition in Kyoto in 1982 and has continued to show in Japan, Hong Kong, the USA, and Europe. In 1986, she opened her Daitokuji print studio in an old kimono weaving loft in northern Kyoto, near the gate of Daitokuji Zen temple. Brayer’s Kamigamo studio was opened in 2012.
Sarah first encountered poured washi paperworks-the technique she soon adopted as her own during a visit to Dieu Donne paper studio in New York City in 1986. This painterly and somewhat unpredictable technique seemed a perfect blend of chance and design, which led her to search out the ancient Japanese paper center of Imadate, Echizen, as the place to make large-scale poured-paper images. She has created her art there continuously since 1986, as the only Western artist to do so. She is assisted by a team of master women papermakers who help her move the large screens, which are essential tools in her large-scale works. In 2012 Brayer embarked on her Luminosity series, which incorporates light-sensitive pigments into the wet paper as a way of infusing her art with an inner light.
Currently residing in northern Kyoto, Sarah divides her working time among Kyoto, Imadate, and New York City.
サラ・ブレヤーは、1980年代より京都を拠点にビジュアル・アーティストとして活動している。
流し込み和紙を用いた大作やアクアチント版画で知られ、2013年には越前和紙による独創的な作品を通して日本文化を国際的に広めたとして、文化庁長官賞を受賞。また、大英博物館、国立アジア美術館、ニューヨーク公共図書館、在日アメリカ大使館などに作品が収蔵されている。
日本での主な活動は、1992年に京都1200年祭の一環として、アーティストとして初めて世界遺産の平等院に和紙作品を展示。2007年にはCWAJ現代版画展(東京)の初の外国人女性カバーアーティストに選出。また、2012年に東京で開催されたTEDに招待され、自身の作品「Luminosity」シリーズについて講演した。
2021年に東福寺光明院禅寺(京都)で個展開催の後、2023年には8枚の襖に滝を描いた障壁画「Lapis Waterfalls」が、光明院の所蔵品となる。この作品の制作の様子を記録したドキュメンタリー映画『Confluence of Life』がNHKワールドによって制作された。
アメリカニューヨーク州ロチェスター出身のブレヤーは、楽焼とメアリー・カサットのアクアチント作品を通して日本美術に魅せられ、1978年よりミドルセックス・ ポリテクニック(イギリス)にて版画制作を開始した。翌年にコネチカット・カレッジ(アメリカ)で美術の学士号を取得、日本への旅に出発。そのなかで特に京都に魅了され、日本の木版画を吉田遠志（1911-1996）に師事した後、アクアチント制作に専念する。
1982年には京都で初個展を開き、その後も日本、香港、アメリカ、ヨーロッパなどで個展を開催。1986年には大徳寺(京都)にほど近い場所に版画工房を開設し、2012年に上賀茂スタジオをオープンした。
1986年にDieu Donne紙工房(ニューヨーク)を訪れた際に注染和紙の技法に出会ったのち、越前和紙の里として知られる今立郡(福井)にて大型の和紙作品の制作を開始。
現在は京都、今立、ニューヨークを行き来しながら制作活動を行う。