In celebration of Lunar New Year, NorthPark Center partners with the Crow Museum and Cris Worley Fine Arts to present Kotodama (言霊) Converse by Nishiki Sugawara-Beda.
A Note from the Artist
I was born and raised in Japan, where all schoolchildren learn calligraphy. Calligraphy has become an entrance point to understanding my own culture as it allows me to recognize the existence of underlying meanings in all forms—language, images, even the mundane interactions of being. This craft and tracing the roots of cultural and material origins provides the foundation and inspiration for my practice.
Kotodama (言霊) Converse, a light-weight sculptural installation, has its physical presence in this space, but you, the viewer, are the one who activates the work. As you move through and interact with the installation, I invite you to bring your own psychological state and emotions to the work to foster conversations with those around you and within yourself.
In the traditional format of Japanese calligraphy, seals—which to Western eyes resemble stamps—and their placement are loaded with significance. The words, or the characters on each seal, provide one meaning; their placement provides yet another. Japanese calligraphic works typically include four seals: two relating to the name of the work’s maker and two carrying poetic words that signify a specific mood. In Kotodama (言霊) Converse, I have decoded and reinterpreted these seals. Rather than placing the seals in their traditional locations on each piece of paper, I have organized my seals in the form of a line onto Mobius strips to represent the notion of boundless continuation.
Because the characters that comprise the seals are being presented without their calligraphic context, the installation provides a blank canvas for you to initiate a dialogue metaphorically and physically with the work. The act of viewing becomes the act of participation. I hope that you will be encouraged to reflect and reexamine your own boundaries of internal and external self.
About the Artist
Nishiki Sugawara-Beda is a Japanese-American visual artist focused on painting and installation, actively exhibiting her work in solo and group exhibitions and offering lectures nationally and internationally. Connecting across space and time, Sugawara-Beda experiments in ancient Japanese materials and techniques including Sumi ink, Kakejiku landscapes, and rice paper, merging them with abstract and expressive forms familiar to the modern Western aesthetic.
Her works are in private and public collections including the Dallas Museum of Art (TX) and Dennos Museum (MI). Exhibition venues include the Spartanburg Art Museum (SC), Morris Graves Museum of Art (CA), Dennos Museum (MI), Amos Eno Gallery (NY), and Cris Worley Fine Arts (TX). Publications include New American Paintings, AEQAI, Athenaeum Review, London Post, Art Spiel, and WhiteHot. Awards including a Seed Grant, Diversity Fellowship, International Enhancement Grant, Idaho Arts Fellowship, Sam Taylor Fellowship, Tusen Takk Foundation Residency, and the Dallas Museum of Art’s Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Fund have supported her artistic research. She is represented by Cris Worley Fine Art in Dallas, Texas. Currently, Sugawara-Beda is an Associate Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.