Photo above- Isao's studio in Nagano
Isao Umeda is a young sculptor/painter from Nagano, Japan who was my student at Dohto (class of 2004). Came to Dohto as a soccer player, he became seriously interested in art in his junior year. One of my biggest surprise in my teaching career, Isao became a serious artist and educator, as upon graduation, he became a high school art teacher in Nagano prefecture. After teaching four years there and having several one person exhibitions, he has decided to move on. Isao is currently expanding artistc expression by studying Japanese lacquer techniques. Interested in going aboard, he is also studying English. In fact, he has travelled around East coast and South regions of US last year visiting galleries and museums along the way. And he just came back from a visit to Europe. Isao's work is noted with spontaneity and an expressive, organic form. He loves to paint with colors, especially red, black and green, and though many of his works are abstract, at times primitive looking figures appear in his work. Perhaps more than any of the students that I have taught, his work has strong inner rhythmic quality which may come from his soccer and musical background. Well, I am curious to see what comes of his experiment with lacquer and his talks of going aboard.
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