suguru hiraide : tokyo beckoning, nagano bowing
October 18, 2025 - November 22, 2025
Press Release
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(Dallas) Ro2 Art presents Tokyo Beckoning, Nagano Bowing, a solo exhibition by Japanese-born sculptor Suguru Hiraide. The exhibition explores how cultural symbols migrate and transform, reflecting the artist’s experience of life between Japan and the United States. Through sculpture, found objects, and reimagined icons, Hiraide reinterprets everyday materials as both cultural bridges and subtle critiques, inviting viewers to reflect on how meaning shifts through translation.
Hiraide’s practice, grounded in humor, empathy, and precision, uses the familiar to expose the unfamiliar. His Beckoning Neko sculptures reconfigure Japan’s traditional Maneki Neko gesture into its Western equivalent, transforming a symbol of luck into a meditation on cultural adaptation. Works such as Shinshu Smoker Grill – Kuro and Shinshu Smoker Grill – Gin reference Japan’s emerging Ohitorisama (solo living) culture, merging domestic design and commentary on solitude in modern society. Throughout Tokyo Beckoning, Nagano Bowing, the artist uses touch, movement, and the physicality of objects to create moments of connection. His sculptures operate as visual dialogues—between East and West, tradition and innovation, humor and introspection—revealing that cultural understanding often begins with small gestures. |
About the Artist
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Suguru Hiraide is a Japanese-born sculptor whose work transforms cultural symbols and everyday objects into reflections on translation, identity, and humor. Born in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, he earned his BFA from West Virginia University and MFA from California State University, Fullerton. He currently serves as Professor of Art at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he has taught since 2003. Hiraide has exhibited internationally across Japan, the United States, Mexico, Thailand, Taiwan, and Costa Rica, with solo shows at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles, and the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts. A founding organizer of the Crosscurrent Exchange Series, he has curated and facilitated numerous U.S.–Japan collaborations, fostering dialogue between artists and institutions.
Through mixed media and found objects, Hiraide bridges Eastern and Western sensibilities with wit and craftsmanship. His sculptures invite connection through recognition, encouraging viewers to reconsider what is gained and lost in cultural translation. |
exhibition statement
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"Having lived between Japan and the United States, I’ve come to understand both the beauty and difficulty of navigating two cultures. My work draws on tangible and symbolic elements—icons, customs, and ordinary objects—to explore how culture is carried, reshaped, and reinterpreted.
I am interested in the coexistence between individuality and harmony, in how subtle encounters reveal both difference and shared humanity. Each piece becomes a reflection on coexistence—between past and present, between what we know and what we think we know." — Suguru Hiraide, 2025 |
