“Damaged V” by Toyoharu Kii

A leader of the cross-cultural craft resurgence, Japan-based artist Toyoharu Kii creates his intricate mosaics with hand-cut Italian marble and smalti, Venetian glass made by the same Italian family for over 400 years. Using traditional Italian techniques, Kii’s art is nonetheless modern. In this series of petite "Damaged" mosaics, Kii reflects on renewal and rebirth. All living beings accumulate damage while on Earth and after their lifetimes they return to the skies to be reincarnated. Kii imagines one of these damaged spirits as a tumultuous mass of tesserae soaring to the heavens. Abstract and highly textured, the outstretched spirit is surrounded by an orderly halo of gold tiles, a radiant expression of the spirit's purity and light.