“node”

Artist: Yusuke Tsuchiya

node, its plural derangements - statues by Yusuke Tsuchiya

Repeatedly fired at temperatures no higher than 900 degrees Celsius, the surfaces of the statues (sculptured human images) produced by Yusuke Tsuchiya are covered all over with a soft texture like that of skin. In recent years, Tsuchiya has applied transparent glaze, colored glass, and other materials after bisque firing. The incomplete fixation of these materials to the surfaces of the sculptures because of the low temperatures left a strong impression of their emptiness as existences on us. Boldly dispensing with a meticulous design for the works, Tsuchiya instead came up with the approach of leaving much to his own senses of touch and sight, and began producing pieces whose appearances wander around the two domains of the concrete and the abstract. He deliberately chose this technique for his unique depiction of human beings. In short, it could be confidently asserted that his production of sculptures over the last few years has been wholly dedicated to the uncertainty and precariousness of human existence.

In this exhibition titled node, in the sense of nodes of connection in networks, Tsuchiya's intention is to create an "intermediate place" without any border lines. This could also be termed a topos replete with a blankness in which plural individual subjects dissolve the demarcation between inside and outside, and preserve a vagueness. Tsuchiya' sculptures are agglomerations of human images and also have an immanent emptiness. They serve as nodes for the projection of past memories and feelings before the gaze of their viewers. There they stand, their delicate, sensitive surfaces accepting the stares of countless visitors.

In this outlook of the artist's, time is another indispensable element that acts like sedimentation and denatures things. The incorporation of the production process and second-hand articles in the form of repeated firings and the antique-looking frames selected by the artist based on his interest are attempts to indicate to viewers that there are no grounds for "being" on the inside = the human body, and that there are, on the contrary, different passages which could open on the outside. By its transformation into a fragment, the body moves into and infiltrates external space. Meanwhile, the landscape and body enclosed in the frames, which function as windows and mirrors, overlap on the uppermost stratum of time's sedimentation. This plasticity induces various interactions in domains with blurred boundaries between inside and outside, and makes the space overflow with the plural derangements and resonance of the existence that is humanity.
- Keisuke Mori, Curator, Chiba City Museum of Art


Image: 「node」2022