Shadow Casting Series
1998 - 2002
Space Catcher is the name Matsui gave to a group of objects Matsui created several years ago, each one if formed from metal, enameled, and then distributed sparely on the floor and walls of gallery spaces. They are mainly small minimalist boxes or vessels that lie with one side flat on the floor or arch off the wall in to the space. A glance in to or through the small tunnel-like forms reveals an intensely colored zone, which encloses a part of the visible real space, and causes our perception of size and space to falter.
Since 1993 Matsui has made nearly all of his indoor works from silicone pigmented in monochrome hues (often in the primary colors of yellow, blue and red). He pours the silicone to create big, shiny, flexible, flat forms, which adhere to the walls like colorful skins or, when supported by solid structures, take on diverse shapes, depending on their own weight and elasticity. |
The sculptures have a paradoxical aspect: the material appears to be extremely artificial and technically produced, but the forms share a biomorphism with archetypal organisms, which reminds us that the familiar separation between inside and outside is no radical division, but rather a matter of convolutions and folds that can expand or shrink, move or pause.
Berndt Schulz Excerpt from catalogue essay for The Outside's Inside, Heidelberg Kunstverein, 2004 |
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