Works

A Smiling Child

How much of healing power do adults get from an innocent smile of a young child!

Though, every adult has the same healing power.

A Young Man

Borrowing the face of Ichiro (a popular baseball player), I tried to express the robustness, vigour and delightful character of contemporary youth.

The God of Thunder

The great power of the nature is worshipped as divine. I made it a point to emphasize power and fury.

The Wind

Does the wind give rise to movement or vice versa?

If you stand completely still, you feel the wind of many kinds passing by.

An Old Woman

While I was working on this mask,

I said to myself, "I wish I had a blissful face like this when I became old".

An Old Man

The mask of a spirited old man.

You can almost hear him say, "I may be an old man. Yet I am still as good as any young man."

King Lear

This is one of the original masks I created for Mr.Munakata Kuniyoshi who has been active in introducing Noh plays to the world through presentation in English.

This photograph was used in the publicity poster for the exhibition featuring "Japanese Performing Arts in the World" in the United States.

Hamlet

The mask is made based on a non-Japanese frame of the face.

This is made for Munakata Kuniyoshi's Noh play in English.

An Untamed Horse

An original mask for the late Izumi Motohide's original Kyogen comedy based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew".

The size is larger than usual and the way it fits to the face is peculiar.

I worked hard to make it lightweight and to secure the adequate field of vision for an actor.

Garuda

Like the "Shishi" (a lion) mask, the Garuda mask is one of those masks that represent non-human entities.

Undulating lines of the mask have been carried into some of Noh masks.

A Hating Woman

This woman is trying to control and suppress an explosive hatred she has.

A Donkey

The mask is made for the late Izumi Motohide's orginal Kyogen comedy based on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Mr. Miyake Tohkuro wore the mask on the stage. Unlike a real donkey that has the eyes on the side of the face, the mask has eyes in front so that an actor could see through holes of eyes.