Water spring movement (including warm water shimmer)

Tsuzuki has developed his practice through the use of materials such as structural plywood and other building materials commonly found in residential construction. For this exhibition, however, he has chosen a new material: “pressed felt,” an industrial felt used as cushioning material in automobiles and housing.

Originally developed not out of environmental concerns, but simply as a means of reducing production costs, pressed felt is made by blending discarded fibers of various colors together, ultimately reducing them to a uniform industrial gray. Yet within the surface of this material, the artist perceives a natural cycle: flowers withering and returning to the brown earth, only to give rise to new shoots in spring.

This cycle is also evident in the rural landscapes of Nagano, which the artist visits on weekends, where powerful forces of nature gradually reclaim places once shaped and inhabited by humans. It can be seen as well in the weeds growing through cracks in the asphalt beside the gallery, forcing their way through the rigid surfaces of the city.

Regardless of place, the tension between the cycles of nature and human activity continually unfolds around us. On the gray surface of this felt, too, this struggle becomes visible.

From a gray ground that contains within it the traces of every color, how might new life—and, in turn, new works—emerge?

Crossing the boundary between industrial products and natural phenomena, Takahiro Tsuzuki’s latest exploration invites us to reconsider the processes through which materials, landscapes, and life itself are continually transformed.