KYOTO - On a late September day, after the summer heat had subsided, as evening approached and the cicadas stopped buzzing, the sound of hand-carved wood filled an otherwise quiet workshop in Kyoto’s Minami Ward. Crunch, crunch, crunch..
. Gakyu Miyamoto sat on a tatami mat inside, carving a statue of the Buddhist guardian deity Idaten. He occasionally blew on the surface, sending wood shavings fluttering away and revealing the statue’s robe, which was gradually taking on a cloth-like texture.
Miyamoto plunged into the Buddhist sculptor’s profession from the world of fashion. That’s why his skills shine in carving clothing and accessories. When he’s about to carve clothing on a statue, he folds a real piece of cloth and faithfully recreates its drapes on the sculpture.
He also designs each statue’s accessories himself, sometimes incorporating motifs from Western art styles like Art Nouveau. Miyamoto’s style has earned him a strong reputation, and he’s received numerous work orders from renowned temples and shrines, including a request to repair the standing statue of Amida Nyorai (Amitabha) at Kiyomizu Temple and create statues of shishi and komainu (guardian lions and dogs) for Shimogamo Shrine. He has a large following on social media.
On the platform X, formerly Twitter, a photo of one of his statues was described as “too handsome for a Buddhist statue” and received 60,000 likes. He has more than 70,000 followers across his social media accounts. Current.
