The documents provide insights into various artists' works and artistic processes. Yuko Takada questions why they must write an artist statement since their art aims to communicate visually. Masaklazu Kabayashi explores line and texture by rubbing handwoven fabrics against surfaces outdoors. Naomi Kobayashi highlights a single thread floating on water under the moon. Overall, the documents discuss themes of nature, memory, the body, and everyday experiences as well as artistic mediums including thread, fabric, hair, and shadow. The artists reflect on materials, techniques, influences, and conceptual approaches in their work.

1. Art is the lie
that enables
us to realize
the truth.
Pablo Picasso

2. (personal) statement(s)

3. Why do I have to write an artist
statement? It's stupid. If I wanted
to write to express myself I would
have been a writer. The whole
idea of my art is to say things
visually. Why can't people just
look at what I do and take away
whatever experiences they will?

4. Yuko Takada

7. For me tracing paper represents
the fine line between dream and
reality

8. Chiyoko Tanaka

10. Many of my pieces, once woven by hand,
are laid down outdoors on the ground, or on
a rock. I then rub them over and over again,
carefully, with a selected stone or a brick. I
just want to touch the earth through this
process, and to trace the texture of the
ground. For these works I have coined the
phrase Grinded Fabric.

11. Masaklazu Kabayashi

13. When I held a single thread
loosely between my hands, I
noticed that it formed a beautiful,
natural line. For the next ten
years I explored this idea.

15. This work was created to
highlight a single strand of
thread. A bamboo-leaf boat
floats down a river on a jet-black
night. A glance reveals a
crescent moon peeping out from
behind the clouds

16. Naomi Kobayashi

18. I am intimately aware of the
rhythms and cycles of nature,
sometimes powerful, at other
times delicate. The circles I have
been presenting for several
years symbolise the cosmos

19. Machiko Agano

21. I am attracted by the mysterious shapes of
nature: patters made by the wind on desert
sands; shapes on eroded rocks on coastal
shores; clouds driven across the autumn
sky. While these natural patterns serve
perhaps no purpose, nevertheless I feel
drawn to the power of an invisible and all-
encompassing force of which I am part.

22. Machiko Agano

24. The limestone cave, and
unconscious memories of the
womb…Once you retrace both
their histories, you are guided
back to a primordial age that you
once knew intimately.

25. Mitsuo Toyazaki

27. I am interested in our everyday, ordinary
senses. Of particular interest are people’s
thoughts in regard to clothing. What is it
about clothing that creates anxiety? The
question is linked to the objectives behind
my work, and in particular to the
consideration of two motifs: decoration and

28. Chiyu Uemae

31. What is so special about art created through
stitching is that the thread itself posses both
light and darkness, and the dark background
cloth is visible even in the densely stitched
areas, so the surface of the work is very
subtle in terms of colour.

32. Ann Hamilton

35. My first hand is a sewing hand
Like human skin (cloth) is a membrane that
divides an exterior from an exterior. It both
reveals and conceals.
Interiors are also exteriors

36. Caroline Broadhead

38. I am interested in the idea of a negative double of the
body, the insubstantial mirror image, the inescapable
other…..
I wanted to use the shadow as an illuminating element,
with a reflective fabric cut to the cast shadow, and here
revealing the lining, the inside of a dress. The small scale
of these pieces gave them a simultaneously sweet and
sinister feel, reflecting the various meanings of shadows.

39. Anne Wilson

41. My objects and installations explore the themes of time,
loss, private and social rituals. The work draws upon
culturally constructed meanings (coded women’s work,
art historical conventions), conceptual processes and
perception. I use predominantly the materials of hair and
cloth and labour (hand stitching) associated with the
domestic work place……. The visceral nature of human
hair is in contrast to the formality of white linen and sets
up an aesthetic oppositional tendencies

42. Michael Brennan-Wood

43. I’ve been interested in
microphotography since I was a
student…it’s almost an inner
landscape, or cellular landscape.
I looked at one of the lace designs
closely and it reminded me of skin.

45. Towards the end of the 80’s I was
beginning to get very interested in
textile history and to question the
derisory way in which decoration
and pattern were written and talked
about.

46. I like the idea of a genealogy, of
being part of the history of textiles.
It makes me feel rooted in a tradition

47. Yinka Shonibare

48. I am actually producing something
perceived as ethnic in inverted
commas, but at the same time the
African Fabric used in my work is
something industrially produced
and given its cultural origins, my
own authenticity is questioned.

50. Eva Hesse

53. It is the most ridiculous structure that I have ever
made and that is why it is really good. It has the
kind of depth I don’t always achieve and that is
the kind of depth or soul or absurdity or life or
meaning or feeling or intellect that I want to get.

54. Christian Boltanski

56. Second-hand clothes speak
of someone who was here
but is no longer here. The
smell and the creases have
remained, but not the
person. Pieces with clothes
are more difficult…one
thinks of the Holocaust. I
always try to use modern
clothes so that they can be
recognised as things of
today.

57. thinking about starting points for writing

58. what do you like doing?

59. what is your work about?

60. building a reference point(s)

61. connections
art history
music
dance
writing
general history
geography/place
contemporary practice
science

62. What do we do?

63. materials and process’s
understand what you work with
become an expert

64. Richard Serra

65. Richard Serra

66. Richard Serra

68. TO ROLL
TO CREASE
TO FOLD
TO STORE
TO BEND
TO SHORTEN
TO TWIST
TO TWINE
TO DAPPLE
TO CRUMPLE
TO SHAVE
TO TEAR
TO CHIP
TO SPLIT
TO CUT
TO SEVER
TO DROP
TO REMOVE
TO SIMPLIFY
TO DIFFER
TO DISARRANGE
TO SHAVE
TO OPEN
TO MIX
TO SPLASH
TO KNOT
TO SPILL
TO DROOP
TO FLOW
TO SWIRL
TO ROTATE
TO SMEAR
TO FLOOD
TO FIRE
TO IMPRESS
TO INLAY
TO LIFT
TO CURVE
TO SUPPORT
TO HOOK
TO SUSPEND
TO SPREAD
TO HANG
OF TENSION
OF GRAVITY
OF ENTROPY
OF NATURE
OF GROUPING
OF LAYERING
OF FELTING
TO COLLECT
TO GRASP
TO TIGHTEN
TO BUNDLE
TO HEAP
TO GATHER
TO ARRANGE
TO REPAIR
TO DISCARD
TO PAIR
TO DISTRIBUTE
TO SURFEIT
TO SCATTER
TO COMPLEMENT
TO ENCLOSE
TO SURROUND
TO ENCIRCLE
TO HIDE
TO COVER
TO WRAP
TO DIG
TO TIE
TO BIND
TO WEAVE
TO JOIN
TO MATCH
TO LAMINATE
TO BOND
TO HINGE
TO MARK
TO EXPAND
TO DILUTE
TO LIGHT
TO REVISE
TO MODULATE
TO DISTRILL
OF WAVES
OF ELECTROMAGNETIC
OF INERTIA
OF IONIZATION
OF POLARIZATION
OF REFRACTION
OF SIMULTANEITY
OF TIDES
OF REFLECTION
OF EQUILIBRIUM
OF SYMMETRY
OF FRICTION
TO STRETCH
TO BOUNCE
TO ERASE
TO SPRAY
TO SYSTEMATIZE
TO REFER
TO FORCE
OF MAPPING
OF LOCATION
OF CONTEXT
OF TIME
TO TALK
OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS
OF CARBONIZATION
67-68
TO CONTINUE

69. contemporary practice
the work of others
what interests you?
materials
process
work
methodology
influences