Ekuan ───── I would like to talk about the Silver Prize winner in the Art Category. The “Jewellery Box” is created by an artist of the Netherlands. The artist was conscious of Japanese Makunouchi-Bento, a variety box lunch. The box is coated with Urushi. The lid has patterns. You will be surprised to open the box and to close the box. His workmanship is truly excellent, but it is rather general. So I have no idea whether or not this work will lead the times as art. However, I would like to highly evaluate his profound knowledge of Japanese culture. This Dutch artist has been attracted to Makunouchi-Bento and Japan and created this work from this attraction. I recommend this work with a sense of security because of my pleasant sensation towards it. I think arts and crafts works must have such pleasant sensation when you hold the works.
I have come to see a new trend through Urushi between Japan and the Netherlands long time after the activities at Dejima, an artificial fan-shaped island constructed in Nagasaki Harbor by the Tokugawa shogunate in the 17th century. There has been an inseparable bound up between Japan and the Netherlands. The Faculty of Japanese Language of Leiden University has collected research on the Japanese people seen from the Western perspective. It boasts the greatest research on Japanese cultures throughout the world. For example, they often interpret Japanese people’s peculiarities as rather good customs and habits, which encourages us to realize our own cultural aspect from a different perspective. This Urushi box was created with the help of the cultural relationship between the two countries. We expect more possibilities to promote the tie between two countries, which is one of the great purposes of this exhibition.

Ohnishi ───── Next we would like Fumio Mae to make comment on “ICHIMATAU”.

Mae ───── I would like to talk about “ICHIMATSU”, the silver Prize winner of the Design Category. In general, the Ichimatsu pattern, checkers, black and white squares continue horizontally, but this work’s checkers have been designed with irregularly. The characteristics of this work are a set of six rectangular pieces in six different colored Urushi coated pieces into random checkers; red, pale vermilion, colcothar, yellow, light blue and white. The work is titled “ICHIMATSU” perhaps because the pattern looks like a simplified form of checkers. The work, a set of six pieces, is simple and easy to use. The artist intends to create this work so that the user will enjoy looking at the work and arranging food on them.
The characteristic of Urushi is very gentle light and gloss on the surface. His Urushi material itself looks humble. Urushi has beauty of its own. Now the work has been coated and finished. As Prof Ohnishi mentioned, it will change while people are using them and another charm will emerge. Japanese people evoke a favorable response to the passage of time while the work is being used. The users breathe life into Urushi ware. This is a very simple and excellent work.