5 Years After Japan’s Devastating Earthquake and Tsunami, Ronin Gallery Recalls “The Great Wave”

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the northeastern coast of Japan. Soon after, a tsunami consumed the coast, swallowing whole towns and covering the Tohoku region with dark waves of roiling seawater and debris. More than 15,000 people died; thousands more are still missing.

For the fifth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami, Ronin Gallery in New York presents “The Great Wave: Contemporary Talents of Japan,” a group show featuring a wide range of artists, each reinventing traditional techniques to illuminate the country’s devastation and revitalization.

Tokyo-based Tomomi Kamoshita creates small sculptures using mismatched fragments of patterned ceramics—random pieces he collected on the seashore after the tsunami waters receded. Kamoshita reassembles the pieces using kintsugi, a technique that involves repairing ceramics by gluing the fragments together with gold. Though the origin of each fragment is unknown, their reconstituted forms represent resilience and cultural revival.

The 11-artist show also includes Yuki Nishimoto’s detailed ink works on paper as well as Masato Sudo’s photographs of tattooed figures posing on a black beach. In Sudo’s portraits, his subjects’ hands, ankles, and feet sink into the pebbled beaches, disappearing into nature.