Kyoko Ibe.

CHAMPAIGN, IL.- The Krannert Art Museum presents The World of Yugen: Japanese Paper Artworks by Kyoko Ibe, on view through January 4, 2009. This exhibition is a large-scale installation of handmade Japanese paper (washi). As both visual art and the setting for a stunning performance environment, Ibe’s work manifests the Japanese concept of yugen, a word used to describe the profound, the remote, and the mysterious. Yugen is that which cannot be easily grasped or expressed in words, but rather revealed through spiritual strength and grace. As Ibe states:

Paper is so beautiful. It shows its beauty texturally when it is between the eyes and light. When we see the fiber in paper it is alive, moving. Paper is light, weightless, freely floating in space. It is a gift from nature.

The installation will be accompanied by a separate exhibition of Ibe’s latest two-dimensional washi works.

Exhibition supported in part by Fox Development Corporation; Frances P. Rohlen Visiting Artists Fund/College of Fine and Applied Arts; Office of the Chancellor, UIUC; Office of the Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs; Illinois Arts Council; Krannert Art Museum Director’s Circle; Krannert Art Museum Council.