OSAKA, JAPAN
MEET KINJI YOSHIDA
SHAPED BY FOG
"I wanted to express this foggy landscape."
For ten years, Kinji Yoshida worked in Kameoka, Kyoto, a basin where dense Tanba Kiri fog settles across the town from autumn through spring. As morning light moves through the mist, white, grey, and pale blue appear and disappear in shifting layers. Kinji began experimenting with ways to capture this elusive landscape in wood, eventually developing his distinctive fog finish.
TRACES OF THE HAND
"Every surface begins with the mark of a tool."
Kinji finishes each piece using Japanese hand tools, carving the wood before repeatedly applying and polishing layers of urushi lacquer. Deep black finishes and blue-toned whites reveal the grain beneath while allowing subtle irregularities of the carving to remain. Light continually changes the surface, creating the same sense of depth and ambiguity that first drew him to the morning mist.
BUILT ON CRAFT
"Craftsmanship became the foundation for artistic exploration."
Before beginning his studio art practice, Yoshida spent years making custom furniture for restaurants and hotels, then worked as a woodworking instructor and satoyama coordinator, creating with locally thinned timber and teaching others to work with wood. That technical foundation remains present in every object he makes today, where precision and function meet a quieter pursuit of atmosphere, texture, and light.
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