Artist and conservator Naoko Fukumaru, shown here in a provided photo, applies gold powder to a kintsugi artwork in her Vancouver studio, 2024. Fukumaru's first solo kintsugi exhibit in the U.S. will be on display at the Portland Japanese Garden through Jan. 27, 2025.
Courtesy of Naoko Fukumaru
Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold dust. The idea is to highlight the imperfections of a piece and celebrate its new form, rather than hide its chips and cracks. Artist Naoko Fukumaru wasn’t initially interested in kintsugi — as a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts and other institutions, she was focused on rendering imperfections invisible. But after the collapse of her marriage following her move to Canada, she began to appreciate the message of resilience and reinvention that are fundamental to the practice.
Fukumaru’s first solo kintsugi exhibition in the U.S. is currently on display at the Portland Japanese Garden and runs through Jan. 27. She joins us to talk more about the exhibit and the message she hopes visitors take from it.
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