Artists Registry

Onishi Gallery, located in the heart of Chealsea, New York's art district, presents contemporary work by artists from Japan and other Asian nations. The "Kuyo Tree," sculpted by Italian artist Roberto Leone, was born out of an artistic movement called the "Kuyo Project" that was founded in 2006 by an international group of artists, and is partnered with Onishi Gallery.

"Kuyo" is a Japanese word that conveys loving remembrance and veneration for our departed friends and family. When practicing "Kuyo," we feel love and appreciation for the gifts from those long gone, and we thank them for our present happiness and well-being. Although "Kuyo" is a Japanese concept, this idea is universally applicable to the collective experience of grief and acceptance. From a place of relatable empathy, the "Kuyo Project" artists have produced works that encourage viewers to engage acceptance and appreciation of events that have shaped our lives and our world.

One such viewer is Dening Lohez. Dening's husband, Jerome Lohez, was killed in the 9/11 attacks. After Jerome's death, she created the Jerome Lohez September 11th Scholarship Foundation, which provides talented French students with funds to live and study in the United States.Through her cooperative, emotional involvement, this "Kuyo Tree Project" was also born.

The Kuyo Tree Project began on September 11th, 2006 with an internationally-constituted march from the United Nations to the World Trade Center site. Together, artists, widowers, workers, and children tied ribbons of remembrance and shared in a ceremony of meditation and prayer. Around the area of the sculpture, the Onishi Gallery, which represents this piece, installed the interactive sculptural "Kuyo Tree" to symbolize new life and continued growth.

Though the tree appears to be a single piece of wood, it is actually composed of many rounded pieces laid one on top of another, the grain carefully aligned so that it stretches uniformly from bottom to top. The pieces form an undulating, figural shape that viewers are drawn to touch. Interacting with the tree is immensely comforting, protective with its totem-like strength and solidity while still approachable, soft and nurturing. It also seems to move, and can be installed so that it hangs above the ground, lightly rotating with the surrounding air. This movement, wordless and immediately involving, suggests a continuity of life reaching beyond one's immediate experience, from one's ancestors to his progeny, to surrounding communities and friends yet un-made. The viewer is invited to tie notes and remembrances to the tree, in the Kuyo tradition, adding his/her own artwork to this ongoing and collaborative project.

This piece, with its message of nurturing growth, looks to the future as something malleable, shaped through our current actions as well as those made before. Through our appreciation of the past and an informed method of living, we can provide a hopeful future for our descendants.
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A Kuyo Noh Inspired Dance was also performed at Ground Zero on 9/11/2006 to complement the Kuyo Tree installation and ceremony.

"Kuyo" is the eternal theme of the Noh mask maker, Tendo Noguchi. In this piece, Noguchi felt and found a spirit and soul inside a tree, and interpreted it onto the mask carved form its wood. Performers, led by choreographer Yana Schnitzler, touch the masks and dance as if moved by the powers hidden therein. It is actually the masks that lead the performers - and through them tell stories to the audience.

Yana Schnitzler, founder of Human Kinetics Movement Theater, blends dance and the visual arts to create site-specific movement installations that transform the environment, revealing to its
audience new possibilities of perception and meaning.

*Noh mask by Tendo Noguchi * Created and choreographed by Yana Schnitzler * Calligraphy by Masako Inkyo * Produced and conceived by Nana Onishi and Zenryu *