Tsuyoshi Ueda
Metal sculptor
Takaoka, Japan
The delicate beauty of decay
- Tsuyoshi aims to share the beauty of rust through his pieces
- His key materials are copper alloys that respond richly to patination
- He is a lecturer in metal casting at Kanazawa College of Art and Craft
Tsuyoshi Ueda is a metalworker based in Takaoka, Toyama prefecture, a region long known for its metal production. After discovering metalwork at university, he spent six years at a local company refining his finishing skills. Drawn initially to sculpture, Tsuyoshi now creates both 3D and 2D pieces that call to mind fossils, fragments of minerals, relics of ancient civilisations and items from the depths of outer space, while exploring the metal's wide expressive range. “I embrace the inherent instability of metal as it moves toward rust and returns to its original mineral state,” he says. Through an extensive exploration of rust, Tsuyoshi seeks to highlight this return of refined metal to its mineral state and to evoke a sense of what existed before humanity viewed metal as something to be used.
INTERVIEW
I became fascinated with rust when I understood that colouring is essentially a method of oxidising metal and returning it to its natural state. Minerals found in nature are extracted and processed by human hands, transformed into an artificial object. As they rust, they return to a natural state. Realising that working through the techniques of casting means experiencing this whole cycle opened up an entire world for me.
As a student, I worked with moulds larger than a person's height, requiring many people to build and cast. Melting metal at that scale, surrounded by others, created a tension and a sense of achievement I have never forgotten.
I moved to Takaoka, long a centre for artistic copperware production, after completing graduate school. With so many companies supporting the copperware industry, materials are straightforward to source in this area, which is very helpful for my own artistic production.
Rust on metal is generally disliked. It is associated with dirtiness or something unhealthy and it causes metal products to lose their value. And yet rust can sometimes be beautiful, capable of touching our emotions deeply. Something with a negative image can appear beautiful depending on how we look at it. That moment when a negative image transforms into a positive one is what I want to share with people around the world through my exploration of rust.
