KENROCK 2021 At Crystal Park, Holmes, NY
By Kenichi Hiratsuka
KENROCK 2021 was commissioned by Thomas Chen, owner of Crystal Park, a private sculpture park in Holmes, NY. Ken took on this project at a time when Asian-Americans were being targeted with irrational acts of violence during the darkest days of the 2020-2021 Pandemic. He positioned it in the Park prominently for neighbors to observe the process and the resulting sculpture. The massive size and density of this 30-ton glacial boulder belies its message of beauty, hope and unity. “I hope that those who see my work will discover new aspects of life, deeper levels of experience of which they may be only dimly aware. I want to inspire people to become more conscious of nature and our common humanity. No matter how lifestyles change, the basic self remains the same. I want to help bring human beings together. In my art there are no social, economic, cultural or political distinctions. We are all one.” Ken Hiratsuka
About the Artist
Sculptor Ken Hiratsuka was born in 1959 in Shimodate City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. He graduated in 1982 from Musashino University of Art in Tokyo. In the same year, Hiratsuka came to New York City, received a fellowship from the Art Students League, and began to carve the slate and granite sidewalks of the city, becoming a prominent figure in the Street Art Movement. Imagining the earth as a single rock, Hiratsuka began his ongoing work of carving one continuous line in stone around the world, a statement of art’s capacity to transcend the differences of nations and languages. To date, his work can be seen in permanent public sites in both urban and natural environments in 25 countries. His work is included in museum collections in Finland, Japan, and US/Miami, FL. Permanent public works include the Stone Garden at Hillsdale Shopping Center, San Mateo, CA; Trio of OneLine Carved Boulders at Wynwood Walls Museum, Miami, FL; “River” at 25 Bond Street, NYC; “Tulip” at 110 Greene Street, NYC; Montauk, NY; Cowra Australia’s Japanese Garden; Rio de Janeiro Playa da Flamingo; Guilin, China; Gobi Desert Mongolia. Showing with Artists4Peace is Hiratsuka’s most recent boulder sculpture, titled KENROCK 2021 commissioned by Crystal Park, Holmes, NY. From the inner city, to the desert, to the coastline, Hiratsuka’s stone works are characterized by maze-like designs of infinite variation, always formed by one continuous line that never crosses itself. Hiratsuka often refers to his works as “fossils of the moment.” They are both modern and ancient, a symbol of human communication through universal language on the surface of the earth as one huge rock.