is a Japanese sculptor. Funakoshi is considered a leading name in the field of visual arts in his country. His father,

Yasutake Funakoshi was a Japanese sculptor and painter. Life and work Funakoshi was born in what is now the town of Ichinohe in the Iwate Prefecture in northern Honshū. Later he attended middle school in Morioka where the painter Shunsuke Matsumoto was a ...

, was also a sculptor and soon he felt the same vocation. He studied in the University of Art and Design, from 1971 to 1975, and in the University of Fine Arts and Music, from 1975 to 1977. He started carving in camphor wood in 1980. His works, usually depicting human figures from the waist up, have a great poetical effect, and are striking and distinctive. Funakoshi's works this material in a personal way and leaves visible both the grain of the wood and the marks of carving. The artist carefully utilises the grain for modelling and leaves part of the head unpainted, normally the crown. He has exhibited his work at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, the

São Paulo Biennale SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S. ...

, the Documenta IX, and the Shanghai Biennale, and his work is represented in several art museums in Japan and other countries.

References

* 1951 births 20th-century Japanese sculptors 21st-century Japanese sculptors Japanese contemporary artists Living people People from Morioka, Iwate {{Japan-sculptor-stub