Keiko Mukaide: Light of the North

Tate Publishing | 2006 | 9781854376336 

The Japanese artist Keiko Mukaide(b. 1954) is renowned, since the late 1990s, for working with glass in relation to nature to create dramatic installations which push the boundaries in terms of the accepted functionality of glass. This publication
accompanied an important exhibition created for Tate St Ives that highlights the artist’s distinctive approach.

Roanne Dods’ essay Light of the North, considers Mukaide’s evolving philosophy of ideas, her knowledge of the physical properties and processes of her chosen material and the context of St Ives and Modernism.

For nearly 200 years, visiting artists have been inspired by the light and atmosphere of the Cornish landscape. It is this intuitive response to place which  motivated an ambitious installation by glass artist Keiko Mukalde. For the 55 foot-long, sea-facing curved showcase, the artist created an installation which exploits gently coloured light using embedded shards of dichroic glass which are centrally lit by a beehive lighthouse lens.

In dialogue with the maritime heritage of both her adopted Scottish home and Cornwall’s St Ives, the work also probes ideas about human perceptions of the landscape, deriving from both a real and imagined experience.