About In Praise of Hands: Woodcuts by Naoko Matsubara
This exhibition explores the work of distinguished printmaker Naoko Matsubara (b. 1937), who donated 100 works to the Ashmolean in 2019.
The human hand, one of the most challenging subjects for any artist, is a theme that Naoko has explored since the birth of her son in 1973.
She writes: ‘His tiny hands, at first clenching tightly, started to open up, and it startled me to see the very beginnings of human communication fluently expressed in so much variety.’
There is equal variety in Naoko’s treatment of this single subject as her work ranges over colour and monochrome, figurative to abstract, intimate to monumental.
Gallery 29, First Floor
