art and poetry journal · 2023

Sono Kuwayama

Untitled (stone), watercolor, 8 x 8 in.
Courtesy Ki Smith Gallery. Photos by Roman Dean.
Untitled (iolchloch), watercolor 8 x 8 in.
Courtesy Ki Smith Gallery. Photos by Roman Dean.

Sono Kuwayama’s works are conceptual installations which engage in relational ideas about space. In Ireland, her interest focused on the ancient landscape of the Burren and the indigenous Irish language. The installation, “Fragments in the Memory of Place” is a meditation of language and landscape, made of over 150 paintings of stones and words for stones in Irish and English. What do we lose when we lose a language? How do we engage with our environment? How does language inform our way of seeing, experiencing and living in the world?