Label
Kunio Ohashi
Untitled (square panel with four symbols), circa 2000-2014
33” x 33” x 7”
Argon-Mercury filled glass with phosphor coating, driftwood, wood, rock, fabric, transformer, paint
Gift of Kunio Ohashi Estate, donated in 2014
Kunio Ohashi’s work meditates upon the natural through the found and handmade object. The artist juxtaposes materials to enhance and subvert the viewer’s relationship with material. Kunio Ohashi’s work fuses found elements such as rocks and wood with neon light. He both hides and centers the neon tube, demonstrating several ways that neon can transform an object or exist independently as a sculptural form. Ohashi states, “I am interested in putting inanimate materials together with very live materials. I normally start to work with natural objects such as driftwood or stone, which I find in the desert or at the beach. I often use neon in primary colors, especially red and blue... Stone gives me energy, wood gives me a calm feeling and neon an element of surprise. I try to create art that integrates neon and any other materials in such a way that the viewer has a sense of the whole rather than its parts.” Playing with rhythm, balance, harmony, and geometry, the work employs primary and secondary colors and the structure of four squares within a single square to make a dramatic yet grounded composition.
Ohashi taught at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. He presented solo exhibitions at Museum of Neon Art, Los Angeles; Oceanside Museum of Art, CA; University of California, San Diego; Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita; Spiral Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; and Caretta Shiodome, Tokyo, Japan. The Ivar Theatre Façade in Hollywood was the artist’s first major public art commission. In 2004, Ohashi curated the Neon Art Exhibition at the Los Angeles International Airport. Ohashi’s archives were posthumously donated to the Museum of Neon Art in 2014.