Asahara Shigeaki Biography
Shigeaki Asahara is a student of the artist Nakamoto Tatsuya, a painting teacher. On the advice of his teacher, he decides to move to Italy, to Turin, to enroll at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts. One of his paintings is selected for the Young Art competition. Although he rarely attended lessons, his interest was focused on automobile design, a field full of stimuli in that period. Back in Japan, he collaborates with Adam&Eve and the Otska Ohmi company, gaining experience in the ceramic sector. Subsequently, he returned to Turin and, between 1977 and 1978, he collaborated as a designer with ABACO, a well-known architecture and interior design studio. Starting in the 1980s, he began his career as a freelance designer, distinguishing himself in the lighting sector and alternating his work between Italy and Japan. In 1980 the Tokio lamp by Stilnovo was selected for the Compasso d'Oro and was awarded several times with the IF Award of Hannover. For Ushio Spax, Yamada and Daiko, he designs lamps dedicated to the Japanese market, twice winning the Good Design Award established by the Ministry of Industry. Some of his lamps are part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum in New York. In Italy he collaborates with Cristal Art, Candle, Contact, Stilnovo and Lucitalia. Giuliana Gramigna publishes some of her creations in the "Repertoire of Italian design 1950-2000", mentioning her name among the few foreign designers. In 2019 Codiceicona reissues two of his works from 1984, Palomar, and 1981, Ziggurat, which represent unmistakable examples of Shigeaki Asahara's design lexicon. In full agreement with the designer, in the same year a reduced-scale version of the Ziggurat and the Misura table lamp were marketed, which today has a timeless design and represents a coherent testimony of its time.
