Alan Cernak (USA) Residency: July, 2013
Alan Cernak is a studio artist at the GoggleWorks, the largest art center of its kind in the United States. Alan began his career in New York City in the early 1980s, and has worked as a professional artist his entire adult life.
He is completely self-taught and works in a wide variety of materials and themes. His current work explores large textural conceptual sculpture, incorporating painting and design techniques into traditional origami forms.
Alan is also a research associate of the Kyoto Manga Museum and has worked with Kyoto Seika University to bring the work of Japanese artists to America for exhibition. With his daughter Lily, he collects historic Japanese manga dating back to the 1700s, which they give presentations on at museums, universities and anime conventions. In 2011-12, the collection was on display at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum as part of their Hello Manga! exhibit, for which Alan and Lily created large manga-themed murals. Alan is also an origami and Japanese language instructor, and his work is widely collected and represented in private museum and university collections.
During his stay at Studio Kura, he organized a ORIGAMI workshop to locals. He had the solo exhibition「UGOKIGAMI」(moving paper) which introduced a work which can enjoy 2 pictures in one artwork called「tesselation」.
