In celebration of Lunar New Year, we welcome a special art piece by Japanese-born artist Yuko Nishikawa.
Wiggle-Under is a mobile installation that welcomes viewers to come into the space, move the air, and watch the work come to life. Titled “cookies” by the artist, each colorful pod is made of paper pulp, which is lightweight and durable and allows wire structures to suspend the elements. Altogether, they create airy yet structured forms that turn with the flow of the air.
"Mobile installations are the result of my desire to witness this interaction between the objects, the viewers, and the space," said Nishikawa.
Hear from the artist as she discusses her artistic process:
"Each mobile starts from used photo-background paper, which I collect from artists and photographers in my Brooklyn studio building. I break it down to pulp and formulate it with bookbinders’ glue into an air-dry clay. The rich colors come directly from the colors of the donated paper; there are no added paints or pigments. I mix pulps to make additional colors and effects, by blending blue pulp and red pulp to make purple clay, for example. Mushy pulps create homogeneous colors, while crumbly pulps have a stippled effect. Finely blended pulps form a smoother surface, like macarons, while coarser pulps become bumpier like oatmeal cookies. I find joy in this process where the pulp retains the paper’s original color, and the fibrous textures characterize these mobiles with friendly and joyful expressions.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yuko Nishikawa creates a fantastical environment with her colorful, tactile, and lively forms. With a hands-on, exploratory approach, she makes paintings, lighting, mobiles, and sculptures using a variety of mediums, reflecting her experiences in architecture, restoration, interior and furniture design, crafts, and engineering.
Growing up in the seaside town of Chigasaki just south of Tokyo, she now resides in New York City. She works in her Brooklyn studio which she named Forest: a place where things grow and things decay to nourish new lives, and where people can wonder and discover something new.