Artwork
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August 31, 2021
Grace Ebert
Hanging from the ceiling like candy-colored droplets, the paper-pulp mobiles by Yuko Nishikawa flip a stark gallery right into a whimsical dreamscape. The Brooklyn-based artist fashions large, sloping vessels and punctured rings from recycled packages, outdated diaries, sketches, and different waste supplies, forming particular person pods that connect to sprawling metallic armature. Ephemeral in materials and design, every bit is created with the intention that it will likely be unassembled and reverted again to its muddled kind for resculpting.
With a background in ceramics, Nishikawa switched to paper final yr as a result of it’s light-weight, doesn’t require firing in electricity-dependent kilns, and is extra sturdy as soon as dry. The pastels and delicate hues she gravitates towards are impressed by the pure pigments of wool yarn, though she likens her course of to mixing paints, saying:
I blended blue paper pulp and crimson paper pulp, and a little bit of yellow paper pulp to make a muted purple paper clay. I mixed them at their completely different blended phases, too ,to make various textures and colour results. Mushy pulps would make homogeneous colours, whereas crumbly pulps would have a stippled impact. Finely blended pulps would change into a smoother floor when dry, whereas coarser pulps would change into bumpier like oatmeal cookies.
Designed as an invite to think about new methods of discovering pleasure, Nishikawa’s works all derive from the concept of piku piku, “a Japanese onomatopoeia that describes involuntary actions attributable to sudden contact,” she writes. “I need my work to make you’re feeling piku piku, tickling one thing deep down inside you.”
This fall, Nishikawa will open a solo present at Kishka Gallery & Library in White River Junction, Vermont, and also will have work at Major Window Dumbo. A few of her mobiles are at the moment accessible via Room68, the place she’ll current a brand new assortment later this yr. Till then, see extra of her items and works-in-progress on Instagram.
#set up
#paper
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