YUKO TAKADA KELLER Soft Sculpture

I am a Japanese Artist living in Denmark since 1997. I'm showing my work not only in Denmark but also in some other European countries as well as Japan. I also curate some exhibitions to introduce Japanese artists in Denmark and sometimes arrange the music concert in my exhibition space.

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I used to be a weaver in some years after I graduated Kyoto City University of Art (M.F.A 1983). And I started to use tracing paper from 1986, so I’ve been using tracing paper for more than 30 years. But not only tracing paper, I also use polypropylene for the public art as a stable material.

At the beginning of using tracing paper, I hoped my works would remind the viewer of something pure and natural in this world. But I gradually began to be conscious of a skin membrane in between transparency and untransparency that tracing paper has. So I wanted to represent something more, not only pure or natural, in this world. Sometimes we can’t see things visually, but they exist in our mind.

 

From 1996, I have been using tiny small triangle pieces in my work. It symbolizes something like a molecule. A molecule of water or light or air. I would like to create an aerial sculpture with these tiny molecules, just like pointillism. When I am conscious of a skin membrane in the air, I can feel invisible things. It's something we have already forgotten or we don't try to see. But we have to remember, and we have to try to see. There is a value in this invisible world.

 

“Tracing paper has a transparency and an untransparency.

I'm interested in how tracing paper is like a skin membrane.

The skin membrane lies between dream and reality.

The skin membrane lies between consciousness and behavior.

The skin membrane is there when life is born.

The skin membrane is part of a human being.

I want to represent the space that people are aware of the skin membrane is unconsciousness.”