PUBLIC OPENING

In Pursuit of Poetry: New Work by Geoff Dunn

Zen Spirit: Work by Miraku Kamei XV and Hisaaki Kamei

Saturday, 10 September 2022
3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
240 Newbury Street, 3rd Floor

For Geoffrey P. Dunn, painting has been an important activity in his life ever since it was recommended it to him at age 13 by his mother when he was confined to quarters for misbehavior at school. Upon graduation from high school, he had a one-person show of his work, earning him the school prize in fine arts. He also received the school’s prize for best historical essay in which he chronicled the development of American landscape painting during the nineteenth century.

In college, Dunn majored in religion and minored in fine arts, studying with the Dutch painter Charles Stegeman. It was Professor Stegeman who first suggested to Dunn a career in medicine: “You are a very competent painter and do fabulous work, but I believe your heart is elsewhere. I think you should be a doctor.” During this time, Dunn studied privately in Erie for several years with professional artist Andrew Sanders. After a long hiatus, Dunn resumed painting during his many trips to the Georgian Bay region of Ontario, where he was strongly influenced by the Canadian school The Group of Seven. During the late 1990s Dunn recognized a deeper and more spiritual purpose to painting through the inspiration and counsel of Brother Thomas, a world-renowned potter. At that time plein air painting had increasingly become the counterpoint and catharsis for Dunn’s career in hospice and palliative care. This subsequently was the substance of much of his professional writing and lecturing.

Dunn has had four solo exhibits at Glass Growers Gallery and two solo exhibits at the Erie Insurance Group’s gallery. Additionally, he exhibited annually at the Mercyhurst faculty exhibit, and twice at the Erie Art Museum Spring Show. Dunn is a member of the Northwest Pennsylvania Artists Association and in 2012, he was accepted as a non-resident artist member of the Salmagundi Art Club in New York City. He exhibited in a juried show there in 2014 and received an Honorable Mention. Private patrons have commissioned his work over the past decade.

Dunn is also an Emeritus member of the Department of Surgery of UPMC Hamot, and former Medical Director of the Palliative Care Consultation Service there. His surgical experience included trauma, burns, pediatrics, and cancer in this country and abroad, where he has been a visiting professor in India, Great Britain, Canada, China, and Norway. Since 1997 his work has focused on the education of surgeons nationally and internationally about the principles and practice of palliative care in the setting of serious and life-limiting illness. His current pursuits include painting and environmental service.

Miraku Kamei XV was born Masahisa Kamei in 1960, the eldest son of Miraku Kamei XIV, master potter of Takatori ware. He completed his university degree in Ceramics at Kyoto Saga University of Arts and took the title of the fifteenth generation in 2001. Mr. Kamei has been carrying on the tradition of Takatori ware for more than thirty years. In addition to exhibiting and promoting Takatori ware around Japan, he is an active teacher, training students in ceramics at a number of institutions around his home city of Fukuoka. He is also president of the Fukuoka/Hakata branch of the Japan Ceramics Association and a member of numerous arts organizations. In 2016, Kamei received the award of Contemporary Master Craftsman, designated to a craftsman with excellent skills from Fukuoka, Japan.

Hisaaki Kamei was born as the first son of Takatoriyaki Miraku Kamei XV. Takatori started as Kuroda Clan’s kiln and has been creating pottery for tea ceremony for 400 years. Based on a tea master Enshu Kobori’s kirei sabi (bright sabi), each generation has inherited from previous masters several techniques, including symmetrical shapes, thin structures, and gradation using seven different traditional glazes. Each master has moved forward creating his own pottery. Hisaaki Kamei received a B.A. at the School of Business at Hosei University and graduated from the Forming Department, Kyoto Prefecture Pottery School. He is a Board Member of the Japan-France Tea Ceremony Association and has recently lectured in Cameroon and France.