Ritsuko Ozeki: Awai

12 July - 27 August 2022

Person to person, object to object, time to time.

"Awai"
Person to person, object to object, time to time.
An ancient word meaning "betweenness," or the relationship between things. An ambiguous boundry where two worlds are overlapping. It also means a space of chaos created by the melting together of the inside and outside, and a sense of vague and ethereal boundaries, as represented in tea ceremonty rooms, Noh plays, and engawa (veranda).
 
Drawing is a movement of the mind and body back and forth between the unconscius and the conscious. The drawing process, which constructs a space without words, conversely brings up a variety of words as well. These lines and shapes can only be created at that moment, so it is both a diary and a vital task to organize concepts.
My work is always carried out in the dark. I repeat the time when I think I have grasped something, and then it disappears into the void. Just as the ancient travelers relied on the stars to guide their path, a tiny light can be a sign. 
 
Boundaries became painfully real with Covid-19.
Somehow I managed to grasp this feeling and consciousness through drawing and expressed it with copperplate prints. 
The copperplate engraved with scratches becomes an image, and the lines of the engraving, whose depths and expression change with the time of corrosion, are naturally infused with time. 
 
-Ritsuko Ozeki , 2022