Kozo – Richard Gorman exhibits in Dublin

Associated media

20 January – 25 February 2012

Kozo is an exhibition of works on handmade Japanese echizen kozo washi paper using techniques including dyed paper pulp poured into moulds and gouache paint on paper made by the artist.  Richard Gorman made the paperworks at Iwano Heyzabouro paper mill in Imadate Fukui in West Japan over a period of ten years, 1999–2009.

The gouaches, 63 x 49 cm, have grown out of a personal research to find an authentic non-narrative means of pictorial expression. This enquiry has led Gorman to look at diverse connected images such as early Italian Renaissance paintings, such as works by Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna and Piero della Francesca, and Japanese Ukiyo-e ‘floating world’ woodblock prints, as well as Henri Matisse graphic works, including the ‘Jazz’ series from 1947.



These works are underpinned by a fairly rigorous geometrical logic, which far from acting as a constraint, have the effect of liberating the work into its own world of colour, edge, equilibrium and disequilibrium. The linear geometric under-drawing acts as an armature on which to hang the bright flat interlocking shapes on the paper surface.

‘All Wall’ is made up of a series of 40 individual sheets of handmade paper, 49 x 63 cm, resulting in a final dimension of 250 x 488 cm. ‘All Wall’ was made by pouring pre-dyed washi paper pulp into moulds placed over freshly made wet paper sheets. It was last exhibited at the Koriyama City Museum of Art, Japan, in 2003.



Gorman has exhibited widely and regularly since the mid-1980s, especially in Dublin, London, Milan and Tokyo. Major solo exhibitions include Itami City Gallery of Art and Mitaka City Art Foundation, Japan, 1999; Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin and Koriyama Museum, Japan, in 2003; Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, in 2009; and Mitaka City of Art, Tokyo and Ashikaga City Gallery of Art, Japan, in 2010.  Gorman has also participated in many group shows internationally over three decades, most notably an exhibition of contemporary Irish drawings, 'A Measured Quietude', which toured the Berkeley Art Museum, California and The Drawing Center, New York.  He is represented in many collections, both public and private in Europe, the UK, Ireland and Japan including New York Public Library, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Koriyama City Museum of Art, Japan and Ulster Museum, Belfast.

Kerlin Gallery, 
Anne's Lane
South, Anne Street,
 Dublin 2, Ireland