By Nobuhiro Nakanishi
Searching for Invisible Body Contours
Through sculpture-related experiences—working with clay and giving forms—I often become conscious of the meaning of looking at an object, which refers to the act of watching that object carefully, carving materials physically, and transporting that object to eventually transform a particular space. It is the act of thinking through this labor that addresses the informational conflicts coming in through my eyes. While creating an object through observation, I use the images in my mind and the materials I have at hand. I always think about what is missing there, imagining the back of the object even when looking at its front. I think of my feelings at the different moments of the process, including the time of transportation; but I also think of the past, as well as what I have not seen yet. My works are different from paintings, in that they do not fit into a frame; and they are not edited, as video images would be. I unify elements of both time and space into this work of creation, in the same way we look at objects in our daily life. I repeat the act of filling up the visible and the invisible simultaneously. Rather than simply looking at an object, I try to grasp time and space through nerves, memory, and touch, as well as movement. The materials I use in my works are an extension of my body. Photographs become layers of time; lines are drawn as traces of acts; and surfaces are made permeable and reflective. I continue to search for invisible contours to maintain that extension.
Nobuhiro Nakanishi is a Japanese artist born in Fukuoka who lives and works in Osaka, Japan. He studied fine arts at the Tokyo Zokei University and Kyoto City University of Art. Nakanishi’s works are different from what has traditionally been understood as sculpture-making. While sculpture involves representing images of humans or objects in three dimensions using media such as wood, stone, clay, or metal, he distances himself from the weight, gravity, and materiality of media related to sculpture. His expression addresses antithetical ideas of existence and absence, the material and the nonmaterial, and the visible and the invisible to generate in space visually imperceptible senses and conceptual territories such as consciousness, thoughts, or memories, as well as time, and he invites viewers into a mysterious experience. Nakanishi has been working on two representative series since the early 2000s: “Layer Drawing,” which captures the accumulation of time as sculpture, and “Stripe Drawing,” which consists of countless vertical lines that are drawn free hand. His work has been exhibited across Japan and internationally. More information about Nobuhiro Nakanishi here.
