Yinka Shonibare Announces Kazuya Tsuji Winner of The Grange Gardens Sculpture Prize

LONDON.- GALERIE8 announces the artist Kazuya Tsuji as the winner of the Grange Garden Sculpture project 2011.

Kazuya Tsuji’s installation entitled Ripples has been chosen as the winning artwork for the new sculpture prize dedicated to the aesthetic transformation of Bermondsey in South London. The award includes prize money of £5,000 as well as up to £35,000 for materials to bring the proposal into fruition.

Yinka Shonibare, the artist behind Trafalgar Square’s current Fourth Plinth commission and head judge for the Grange Gardens Sculpture Prize, described the winning entry as “a beautiful and playful recreation of water ripples in a garden pond. The water ripples sculptures exude meditative calm in the way that they are integrated into the garden design. Congratulations to him, this is a well deserved win!”

Creating ripples out of grey concrete blocks, Tsuji hopes to produce a work that develops a sense of flow in a landscape where the green spaces, water and earth are constrained and defined. Using the aesthetics of symmetry, austerity and rhythm, the visual effect would allow earth and water to combine harmoniously in the urban landscape. The sculpture will gracefully emerge from the ground acting as a counterpoint for the sharp corners and strict limitations of the surrounding space.

The vertical drop of water offers visual impact while sustaining a sense of dynamism in the composition of the shape. The work repetitively encompasses the shape of a circle, a powerful symbol not only in Zen culture, but all around the globe, to inspire calm, meditation and fulfilment.

Tsuji stated “I feel personally attached to this project as it attempts to incorporate aesthetics that I have grown up with myself. I have always been mystified by the attraction that Zen has towards people and it is an honour to help get the same result at Grange Gardens.”

The London based Japanese artist Tsuji uses everyday materials to investigate new experiences in art as he believes that true beauty breathes through the gaps in mundane knowledge and can show the miraculous, the hilarious, the grotesque and the wonderful every step of the way. He is primarily interested in employing familiar materials to create metaphors of our life and the aesthetics of Zen philosophy.

The judging panel for the prize included the London-based artist and Turner Prize nominee Yinka Shonibare, top British architect Michael Lynas, Managing Director of Greene and Co David Pollock, and CEO of Union Developments Assaf Laznik.

Explaining how the prize had been designed to find a proposal that was sophisticated and engaging, Assaf Laznik described Kazuya’s sculpture as “so much more”. He went on to state “Kazuya’s concept shows his interest in simple materials which creates something harmonious, yet surprising.”

Tsuji was selected from a shortlist of artists and artistic groups, each providing unique and ambitious proposals that explore the multifaceted medium of sculpture, these included: Octavio Abundez, L’Atlas and Philippe Rizzotti, Howard Gardener, Matthew Geller, Wannes Goetschalckx, Rebecca Gould, Karen Henderson, Debbie Lawson, Ian Douglas-Jones, Ben Rousseau and Tianshi Lu, Kelsey Lee Offield, Jarek Piotrowski, Max Srba, Richard Stone, Mary Yacoob.