公庄 直樹

Naoki Gujo was born in 1982 and is currently 42 years old.

He studied lacquerwork at the prestigious Kyoto City University of Arts.

However, it was here that he encountered wood, rather than the decorative expressions of lacquer, and discovered its charm. From there, his career as a wood carver began. He initially admired Atsuhiko Misawa and created works similar to the atmosphere of his works. These characteristics expressed the creature as a unique character that he considered. From there, as his career progressed, he established his own unique style of expression. His current theme is sleep. All living things have a period of time called sleep. He is currently energetically expressing the world dreamed of by living things, including humans. The vague characters that he had at the beginning have disappeared, and now his style has changed to embody creatures that exist only in the world of his imagination and dreams, and the world that these creatures dream of.

Another characteristic of his work is that he uses a variety of different types of wood. Woodcarving artists usually do not use many different types of wood. However, Naoki Gujo uses a wide variety of wood, mainly from Japan, to create his works. He applies minimal coloring to his pieces, and his work is centered around using the original color of the wood. I think this is the result of his love for wood itself, and his endless interest and research into wood.

He also values another kind of image work: talking with trees and developing images from that. This is a conversation with nature itself, and can also be interpreted as a creature created in his image emerging from the natural world.