Tattooing, which developed in Japan around the fifteenth century, was not meant to be flaunted to others. It was inked onto parts of the body hidden beneath clothing, embodying an aesthetic in which one carried within the heart the strength of having endured pain, and made that endurance a source of quiet confidence.

When I learned this, living in twenty-first-century, I felt it resembled the women who live in Japan. A confidence that keeps strength held inward and restrained, and the beauty of gesture and thought that arises from it. This ornament of the body is like another skin—a second garment worn beneath one’s clothes.

Project year: 2000

Material: copper, silver, URUSHI(Japanese lacquer)
Hammerwork