Uruga: Interview with an Okinawan artist

Uruga. The word means a Mongolian shepherd's crook.
Immediately one conjures images in the mind of a harsh landscape, isolation, stillness, strength. Uruga; is a word chosen for its sound by the Artist Asako Gibo as a signature for her art.
Uruga, as a sound perhaps reflects the visual qualities of her work, colourful yet not bright, personal but public, abstract and ambiguous, yet still tangiable to the viewer.

Contemporary Okinawan artist Asako Gibo's work demands a very different interpretative approach. Her chosen media are oils on very large scale panels or canvases, even street art, shop fronts and interiors. It is not postcard saleable or figurative art, nor obviously Okinawan- displaying the visual elements of bingata, shisa and so forth. But there is a difference to it, and a freedom to it. Most of Uruga's portfolio features work with some line, shape or even spots, and recently people. She says that there is not a main theme for her art, or a strict style, rather pieces evolve themselves without predetermined conceptions of images or the end product. But, if she was to identify a particular subject or animal that she paints regularly it be the pig, as being Okinawan, she eats a lot of pork and thinks about them. Subjects include everyday life and the natural environment.
Asako Gibo studied art for five years, graduating from Specialist Art School from the Musashino Art College in Tokyo. There she discovered an Okinawa influence in her work previously inapparent. She has exhibited in collaboration and has had solo shows; as well as having painted the likes of coffee shop fronts. Gibo represents one of the most well received Okinawan contemporary artists in Japan. Yet, despite her acclaim she still encounters difficulty in displaying her work due to its nature and scale, as well as the fact that funding in Okinawa tends to go to traditional art forms at the expense of developing modern forms. There is no Prefectural Art Gallery, nor is there any funding available at the National level for contemporary artists as all funding is monopolized by established groups of artists, usually from traditional schools and large scale organizations.
Asako Gibo has ambitions simply to earn enough from her art to survive. Currently, like virtually all Okinawan contemporary artists, she self funds her work, her materials and interpretative catalogues. There is a truthfulness to her art and her manner, and we hope that she continues to practise her art well into the future.

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