平塚健一 Ken Hiratsuka
Sculptor

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 then began to carve the slate and granite sidewalks of the city. Thus 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. His work now can be seen in permanent public sites in both urban and natural environments in nineteen countries. His work is included in museum collections in Finland and Japan. Commissioned works include sculpted city sidewalks, building facades and entranceways, water sculptures and gardens. In February 2008, Hiratsuka completed a one hundred feet long granite sidewalk sculpture commissioned by Goldman Properties for 25 Bond Street, NYC. His other public monuments can be found in Guilin, China; Rio de Janeiro; Cowra, Australia; and Gobi Desert, Mongolia.  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.