Barbara Davis Gallery is pleased to announce The Trees are Humming, a solo exhibition by Yuriko Yamaguchi, opening Friday, September 8th, 2023 from 6:30 - 8:30pm at 4411 Montrose.
Video of Trees are Humming exhibition
With a delicate hand and a gentle spirit, Yuriko Yamaguchi invites communion with the natural world around us. It is easy to become lost in her metaphorical forest, discovering soft intricacies that blend the artificial with the natural — the man-made with what is born from the earth. Yamaguchi twists together hand-cast resin, paper pulp, and steel wire to create forms and structures that seem to narrate their own stories. She works without a plan — the material must whisper to her and tell her how it is meant to live. With such an intuitive process, her work reaches into naturalistic directions, leaving the viewer to wonder what biome originated such forms.
Her sculpture is concerned with the relationship between space and material, between transparency and density, and between texture and absence. It is far too easy to get distracted by the artificial things we live with, but it is important to remember that we are part of nature. Yamaguchi encourages the viewer to consider this by exploring the atmosphere she curates; look at, look through, and look within the sculpture.
Yuriko Yamaguchi, Installation view, 2023
In The Trees are Humming, Yamaguchi’s sculpture invites the viewer in. Web #8 hangs as if it is floating, a suspended explosion that practically buzzes with energy. It is a held breath in a frozen moment, its wire branching and interconnected like roots put on display. And yet, it is just a hint of what is to come once the viewer wanders into Whisper.
Aptly named, this installation calls to the viewer, asks them to find peace in a meditative space. The silk thread shimmers like a summer shower, refreshing and soft. It ripples and rustles in the mind’s eye like a forest full of Quaking Aspen. It stands still and delicate like the lines of Sugar Maple in the winter. It is bleached coral, gasping. It is a network of synapses, sparking. Whatever it becomes to the viewer, it is living, and it is touching. This installation is the result of the never-fully-answered questions Yamaguchi asks herself that motivate her work — “Who am I? Where am I going?” To her, her work is the “culmination of what [she] will be; it is born and will return to the earth.”
Aptly named, this installation calls to the viewer, asks them to find peace in a meditative space. The silk thread shimmers like a summer shower, refreshing and soft. It ripples and rustles in the mind’s eye like a forest full of Quaking Aspen. It stands still and delicate like the lines of Sugar Maple in the winter. It is bleached coral, gasping. It is a network of synapses, sparking. Whatever it becomes to the viewer, it is living, and it is touching. This installation is the result of the never-fully-answered questions Yamaguchi asks herself that motivate her work — “Who am I? Where am I going?” To her, her work is the “culmination of what [she] will be; it is born and will return to the earth.”
Yuriko Yamaguchi, Installation view, 2023
Come and experience this ever-morphing exhibition by the profound Yuriko Yamaguchi, and find who you are and where you are going. The Trees are Humming — and they will continue to hum long after we find our destination.
essay by Laura Semro
Interview with artist Yuriko Yamaguchi
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Yuriko Yamaguchi
Yamaguchi will be featured in the upcoming exhibition The Sky's the Limit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, on view October 21st, 2023 - February 25th, 2024.
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